Happiness Is
by MikoNoNyte
Summary: Koudelka, Shadow Hearts. Vignettes to tell a story. Letting go of the one you love. Chapter 10. Conclusion.
1. Spirit Guides

**Spirit Guides**

Disclaimer: I do not own Koudelka or Shadow Hearts. All characters in this work are fictional, and those that were living I hope I have treated gently. According to Koudelka's creator, she studied with Madame Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society. You can find it on the Web.

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I never looked for this, how could I? Alone, penniless, destitute – I'm a dirty ignorant woman... hmph. I said that once while in my cups, to a man who, oddly, attracted me. And sitting here now, with a smirk on my face, I think of that adventurer with little more than a warm smile, maybe a fond remembrance. We spent a night together, in a haunted monastery, surrounded by death and suffering on such a level as only man can visit upon man. A monastery, a house of God – but such a god that these men believe in could only be their devil in disguise. I hated them. I grew up hating them. And even my teacher could not dissuade me of my disliking for their hypocrite god.

As a child, growing up in Dolgellau, along the banks of the Thuliesian river, I often saw the priest at the local vicarage scowling over the stone fence at me as I walked by. Why he thought that I, a mere ragged, ill fed child, should be such a menace that he would give me such looks... at least he didn't throw holy water. I laugh now, looking back at that, but it's only the passage of time that allows me such leeway.

After my father died, my mother abandoned me: old story, as old as time. Even my own people disowned me. Reviled me. Feared me. But what can one expect from superstitious fools. I did what I could to survive, and took my punishment for being a poor, dirty, ignorant whore. Until I met my teacher.

I was barely ten when my father died and my mother sent me forth to whore for my survival. I was ten going on fifty when I found my teacher. Alone, hungry and soaking wet, I had curled up in a back alley, using someone's dirty brown stoop as shelter. I'd actually found a friend for a while, a wet kitten – together we kept each other company until the downpour stopped. Then I went back out and explored this town I was in; the next street over I ran into my teacher, literally, as I tried to skim a little money from her companion's handily dangling purse. Just my luck she saw me coming.

Helena taught me so much about the world, the spirit and myself. She taught me to control the power that was given to me, not be controlled by it. She taught me that there is more to life than suffering, but that most of us would suffer; and that I, oh yes, most especially I, would suffer greatly. She took me in off the street, a hungry whore begging for a meal, a night off the cold streets of poverty hating London. She took me by my grubby hand and led me inside her home, not a wealthy home, not a mansion, but a practical home, with light, food, and comfort. And she put me down to bed that night with a full belly, clean sheets and a body stinging with the abrasive scrubbing of two Jamaica maids. And the next day she began to teach me.

I balked at those lessons. I wanted none of it. My power, my gift, was a curse, a sentence from God on a poor gypsy child and I wanted none of it! Oh, how I fought her. I refused to listen, I refused to learn and she threatened to turn me out onto the streets again, and I screamed at her how little I cared for her kindness!

And she knew, as I knew, that I was lying.

She locked me in the room, bolting the door from without and instructed the maids to leave me be – to leave me alone with my falsehood and my pride. My pride! As if I had any! But I screamed, and I cursed, and I kicked at that door until my feet were sore, my knees were bruised and my hands bleeding from beating on the solid wooden frame. I finally collapsed on the floor, spent in my fury. And as I sat there, breathing in the cold still air in the room, I heard voices. And I listened.

The voices were all around me. Down the hall - in the storey below - in the attic above - I opened my eyes and saw a miracle. Wispy shadows of forms like light whispering in and out of the walls - walking, gliding, and floating lighter than gossamer on the cold winter air. And their words were soft, ghostly, and incredibly captivating. These were not the ghosts and spirits of my little village, or the haunting souls of the graveyards. These were not dead things creeping in the woods. What were they? I felt no fear in them, only ambivalence or at best, benevolence. I leaned against the door frame and listened as voices floated in my mind, telling me of things I never knew, never wanted to know, but now were my calling.

I sat thus until the light of dawn when the turning of the key in the lock awoke me to my condition. I was freezing cold, sitting on the floor with neither wrap nor blanket for the whole night. No fire had been laid for me, and the room was as chilled as the outside. The maid pushed open the door, moving me aside as, in my confusion I tried to understand what was happening. She smiled at me; a big white-toothed smile and she took a wrap from the end of the bed and draped it around my shoulders, telling me to go see Lady Helena.

With the shawl around my narrow shoulders, I went downstairs to the sitting room. There, in a chair by the fireplace, sat Lady Helena. She was an older woman, her hair once dark now more steel grey, was tucked into tight braids worn around her head, and soft scarf was wrapped around that, trailing like a veil over her shoulders. She had piercing eyes that looked not only at me but through me, and I felt a shuddering in my soul when she turned her hawk-like glance my way.

I took the offered chair opposite her and, trying to control my sudden nerves, listened as she spoke to me. Her voice was mild, matter-of-fact, but brooking no nonsense. She told me I was her new student for as long as I chose, but needed to behave myself and do as instructed. I sat with slack jaw at that, wondering what kind of loon she was, when three men entered the room and stood behind her chair, looking at me with kindly eyes. She made no mention of them and after a minute, I pointed at one, asking who he was.

Lady Helena stopped speaking and smiled, her face warming and a radiant light seemed to glow all around her. From that moment on I was her student and, in an odd way, her daughter. She later told me those men where her spirit guides, ascended masters. I didn't understand what that meant, but I accepted it, because _she_ accepted me.

A/N

This is part of a series of vignettes dealing with Koudelka. Do not expect them to make sense until the final curtain has fallen.


	2. Survival

**Survival**  
Disclaimer: I don't own Koudelka; that honor goes to Sacnoth, now called Nautilus. All characters in this work are fictional, and those that were living I hope I have treated gently. According to Koudelka's creator, she studied with Madame Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society. You can find it on the Web. And a change of rating because of content.

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My teacher accepted me. That was an endearing thing, as she was more than my teacher. Over the months and years, she became more than teacher: friend, confidant, mother. She taught me, guided me, and in her own cold way, loved me. Helena was a very reserved woman, but compared to the cold horrors I had known before, she was warmth personified.

I had fled Wales, leaving behind a dead father, a mother who hated and feared me, and a village bent on my destruction. I wasn't even ten summers old when I fled, working my way across the fields and hills of Wales and into the interior of England. I crossed at Cardiff on the local ferry, sleeping most of the way from sheer exhaustion, and once I made the Cotswold, I did no better.

Slinking into a battered hay barn, I took shelter from a autumn squall, cold rain and wind forcing man and beast to take shelter and the drafty barn, with its smells of sour hay and old manure, was inviting. I slipped inside, climbing to the dusty loft, burying myself in the old straw. If no one came, if the storm did not blow over too soon, then I could sleep here safe for a while. And, wrapped in my thin clothing, the hay pulled up like a scratchy blanket, I went to sleep and dreamed bloody dreams.

Nightmares flooded my eyes with rivers of blood and screams like hell-beasts. I saw corpses lining roadways, their blackened bodies putrid with rot and their eye-sockets empty, the nearby crows flapping happily, the flutter of their wings like the bubble and boil of a cauldron, with great writhing limbs climbing from it to reach up to the black heavens. I shivered in my dream, seeing bodies upon bodies ripped and torn, maimed and destroyed bit by bit, and babies, children hanging from chained cages, their skeletons picked clean. I heard myself moan in my agony of horror and the sound was of the sea, deep, mournful, and full of pain. I wanted to run, to escape this horror but my feet were mired in blood, the ground thick and oozing black with it. I doubled over in pain, my body wracked with the tortures of the rack, whips slicing my flesh into ribbons and pinchers tearing my skin, peeling me back like a ripe melon. And I cried, tears of blood flowing down my face to join the river at my feet and my cries of despair were echoed in the alleys and back streets of a great city.

I suddenly stood on a street, the moonlight ripped with clouds and rain and I could hear the distant clopping of horses as they moved along. Laughter, throaty and deep followed by high and raspy echoed in the night and were quickly hushed. I looked around, the night preternaturally clear to my eyes, each building sharp and angular, the streets straight like razors and I looked to see the hunched form ahead in the back street. And I watched as movement caught my eyes, holding me like a snake, charmed and horrified and despairing, as the man rose up, knife in hand, entrails sliding through his bloody fingers. He reached down and took up something and I saw it was a heart, torn still beating from the woman's chest and my eyes grew wide, my mouth opened and I screamed and screamed and...

I thank whatever gods there may be that my screams were lost in the midnight winds. I shuddered, realized I was wet with sweat and piss and I rolled free of the sodden hay, climbing back to the barn floor. That night I did not sleep again, and when the storm had passed I once more took to the road, catching a ride with a drayman on his way to London, and I paid my way with my body, each time wondering if the screams I heard in my ears were mine or some distant dream. Almost two weeks later, I arrived in London, beaten, battered, raped and beyond caring.

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The September rains had left the streets cold, slick and running with the usual amount of refuse, some more noisome than others. The man that brought me here, to the big city, had his fill of me one night and I slipped out the bedroom window, climbing down the drain spout from the roof. I had little, what I was wearing when my people had run me from home... threatening to burn me, hang me, kill me a hundred ways for something I didn't do. For killing my father, for fixing the time and date and method of his death. As if I myself had picked up the scythe and killed him. No matter, I have learned the hard way that what _is_ and what _isn't,_ is of little concern for those that are quick to accuse.

Once on the ground I ran splashing through the gutters, turning left and right and left through dingy grey and brown streets not knowing where I was nor where I was going until finally I fell to my knees, shaking with exhaustion. I looked around and saw the street sign over my head at the top of the building. I was on Commercial Street in the East End of London. Well, at least I knew a name, of not what it meant. But East End - now that I knew. From reports, rumors, and papers of the day, who had not heard that the infamous East End of London was rife with crime of every sort? I snorted, wrapping my arms around myself in the chill air. How much crime there was here little bothered me if I could not find shelter. I looked further down the street and spotted an alley off the main road and ran for it, seeking shelter from the wind, rain and cold of that last night in September, 1888.

I found a grate close to the ground and, kneeling, I saw it lead into a cellar beneath an old building. I could not make out the signs, but I knew it wasn't a home, probably some business. _Good_, I thought. It's _Saturday so no one will be there for at least two days_. I pulled on the grating, already lose from years of neglect, and slipped inside.

The cellar was a cold, dark hole in the ground, no light coming in from window or gas. I stumbled a few feet in and then fell hard against a crate, banging my legs and arms as I fell. I crawled along the crate to an open space and slipped between two more crates, turning to face the opening like a rat in its hole and huddled shivering, taking an acute inventory of what I had: second hand boots with worn soles, torn and ripped stockings; a ratty skirt that was more rag than cloth and a blouse, a sweater and thread-bare jacket. Not even two coins to rub together! I should have stolen the purse from that bastard, as price for letting him abuse me, but I was more interested in getting away... So there I was, shivering in the dark, swallowing my pride to drown the hunger inside.

Some time around midnight, I heard sounds on the street above - not the usual scrabbling sounds of rats or other vermin, but the sounds of struggle. I slipped out of my hiding spot and, with one hand on the box to guide me, made my way back to the grate. I climbed up and peered into the alleyway. The rain had stopped and a fog had rolled in, dropping clouds low onto the rooftops. It was cold but I could hear movement out on the streets, horses clopping along the sogging gutters and the crack of occasional whips. Already the drayers were making their stops at warehouses along the street and I remembered that this was near the busy warehouses which would be taking in their final loads before closing for Sunday.

I climbed a crate to peer into the dark alley, and movement in the shadows caught my eye. Squinting, my face pressed to the grating, I saw a man and woman leaning against the opposite wall, his body pressed close to hers in a drunken embrace. I turned back and the darkness of the warehouse exploded around me. A carriage full of harlots, bumping its way through the countryside, a crazed man at the reigns... Rioting workmen, their voices raised in panic and anger, surging like a black tide through the streets of a city, a corpse with guts pulled out and face hacked away... a sea of blood washing over me and the cry of seagulls. The screams continued and I blinked, dizzy, turning once more to the grate, seeing the man across the alley pushing the woman to the ground, his arm rising again and again with a flash of steel.

I opened my mouth to scream, fear filling my heart and mind, but no sound came out, only a need to move, overwhelming me and I climbed out through the grate, scraping my knees on the stones of the alley. It was dark, the man did not see me in his concentrated destruction. I rose to my feet, knees wobbly, hands shaking, my mind spinning out of control with sight and sound of things happening and things not happening. I was within a few feet of him when he heard me, spinning around. Face to face with death. His handsome visage, his eyes wide with madness, hands red with blood and the knife... He leapt toward me and I screamed, a shout of sheer terror and raised my hand to ward off the blow I could see coming. And my hand burned. A sudden flare of red fire searing the flesh, flashing with a hellish light and the man's screams joined my own before he fled down the alley, leaving me shaking in terror. The corpse lay in the dark of the alley, her face mutilated, her jaw broken, her neck sliced and blood flowed in a dark stream from her cooling body.

"Elizabeth?" I spoke her name as if I knew her, then turned and fled down the street. Where I went I could not say, my mind and heart were filled with fear and visions of fear, a living nightmare washed through me and I could not, even after much work with my teacher, recall any of it. I came to myself outside Saint Paul's, leaning on a stone bench, my body soaked to the skin, my mind a ripped, torn and bleeding thing, and hungry.

Shaking, I pushed to my feet and saw the carriage at the curb, the people coming and going from the church, their well-fed bodies swathed in layers of warm cloth. I could hear the clink of harness... or was it coins? and I staggered my way toward the crowd, one lone urchin... Looks of horror greeted me, words of ire and condemnation surrounded me... _How dare you? Go away! She's filthy! Damned strumpet, whore! _I bumped into warm coats, was pushed away only to slide into silken dresses; boots struck me, heavy hands battered me and I stumbled into a warm coat, voluminous in its darkness. And the small leather bag suspended from the belt that touched my hand, my fingers grasping it as I fell and taking it.

And in the moment I held the gold, in the moment I fell to the hard stones, a heavy boot struck me near senseless. Blackness filled my eyes, then moved away with a silken caress and I knew it was the lady's dress that I saw, and her face, hard and stern, looked down at me a moment before speaking to someone. Then strong hands lifted me up and put me in the carriage.

The woman with intense eyes, and a voice of steel, took me to her home and became my teacher, my guardian, my... mother. When I think back on her, I remember our arguments and our harsh words, but I also remember the time she sewed my dress with her own hands, dressed my hair with combs and ribbons, her eyes laughing and happy and me giddy with joy over some trivial thing. And I remember her cold, cold face, closed down in silence and peace the day we buried her and how I kept my tears in silence, for on that day I lost my mother a second time.

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Reviewers & Comments:

Looks like only one brave soul commented here. There IS Canon in this story, but You'd really have to be familiar with Koudelka the game to spot it. I've done a bit of blending here and there, mixing up both research materials I found at a Japanese Koudelka site (the developer's), historical stuffs with Blavatsky and her Theosophical Society, and of course, Jack. And no, we're not talking about white-coated Jack from London. This guy was real and well, a nasty bugger.


	3. Initiation

**Initiation**

Disclaimer: I do not own Koudelka, I've just played it so often I dream it at night. sad really

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One day my teacher and I took a sudden train ride and a walk through a churchyard, an old place with graves and markers white with age. She took me to a crypt, slipping open the wrought iron gate and slamming it closed behind us. I was instantly cold, having worn my lighter clothing for the warm summer weather in London. I shivered and Helena stared at me with hard eyes.

"Are you afraid of these old stones, girl? Or what lies beneath them?"

It was a double-edged question, but I wasn't afraid of cold stones or empty graves.

"I should have brought my coat," was all I said then moved past her to take the path down into the ground. The crypt was more than just cold. It was deep in the protective earth and the smell of cold stone, cold iron and empty death was like an ice spear piercing my heart. What was this place?

I could hear the light brushing of Helena's gown on the stone floor behind me but I ignored it. She brought me here for a reason and it was up to me to determine that reason and confront her with it. I closed off my ears to her light but purposeful tread and instead, sent my hearing ahead, ranging into the darkness of the crypt. I could hear the gentle scurrying of rodents, the light brush of their whiskers as they fled into their holes. And I could hear their minute voices, smell their dung and see their life forces... small bits of light and energy slipping between the stones.

I continued down the cold walkway, deeper into the crypt, the darkness surrounding me in its icy grip. I could not see my breath forming like fog before me, nor make out the small recesses with their recent additions. My eyes were wide open, but the dark of the passageway was impenetrable. Finally I reached a small stairs, winding downward deep into the earth and I took these, one hand trailing along the stone wall, feeling the cold dry become cold damp; the stones were wet with condensation and I could smell mould and other underground scents. Around and around the stairs went, narrow and deep, until I stopped, my foot resting on an entryway jamb, an iron door blocking my way. I felt around it, feeling the icy chill penetrate my fingers and I shuddered with more than cold before running my hands over the door in the dark, looking for the handles. These I found and twisted, the iron screaming in protest and I winced with the sound. Then, pushing the door open, I stepped into the deeper dark.

It was so black that the shadows had shadows. I could not see, only the sparks of my eyes trying to make things out in the crypt. I felt my way around, tapping my boot a bit ahead of me, but stopped when I heard the door move behind me.

"Lady Helena?" I asked and my voice sounded frightened even to me. She did not answer, but pulled the door closed and I heard the slamming of a lock on the other side. _Had she locked me in?_ I turned back toward the door and stumbled over my own feet, crashing to the cold stone flags. I scraped my knees, tore my stockings getting to my feet again, and slammed hard against the cold iron door, banging on it with nervous fingers.

"Helena? Lady Helena!"

However, she didn't answer. Somehow, I hadn't expected her to. This was more of her deviousness, more of her tricks. Like the last time. Like last Christmas.

There had been a great gathering at her home of Theosophists and philosophers, teachers and students from India and America. She gathered them to her like chicks to the hen and the house was filled with voices, mostly men, but some women; and of course, the Ascended Masters. I heard them, and the other ghostly voices almost daily now, my teacher training me to see, and hear, and feel. I had been with her for four years and, although she was like a mother to me, the things she taught me – I still didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse.

That night, after supper, the older people gathered in the study, the fireplace roaring, and they had drinks. I was there too, the only one so young – the only child in the building actually - and I sat, nearly somnolent, in a chair against the far wall of the study. My chair was next to the huge bookcase and desk while the fireplace and the adults were across the room. The warmth and the deep voices, combined with a full belly and the crackling of the fire, had me nearly asleep. I felt myself grow tingly, as if my hands and feet had gone numb, and the buzzing sounds in my ears were like a hundred flies. I blinked and raised my hand to wipe away a sweat drop and found my arms no longer moved, so heavy had they become. I struggled to move my arms, then my legs, but I couldn't, the lethargy was deepening and I looked up through blurry eyes to see the room slowly fading.

It felt like sleep at first and then suddenly I was bursting with energy, rising up to fling myself out of the chair, looking down at the adults in their chairs, their motions frozen in time and their eyes locked onto emptiness. I looked from one to the other of them, and then to my teacher who, sitting in the great chair, her head tilted to one side, looked right at me. I felt a fluttering in my heart, a nervous excitement and then moved away, passing from the room, my feet never touching the floor. Through the second floor I fled, then the attic, and finally to the gabled rooftop and out into the cold December night. I felt lighter than air, lighter than the twinkling stars and I rose higher and higher until the city below me was a small dot of twinkling lights and deeper darks. Higher and higher, until the clouds themselves were but mere specks, and the moon and the stars were all smaller than the buttons on my shoes.

Finally I slowed, the wings at my back a flutter of rainbow colours and I was suddenly smiling at the realization that I had wings. I could fly! I moved with the thought, my wings catching stardust and carrying me along. Joy filled me like never before and I soared higher and higher, catching a glint of stars on my left, a dusting of lights on my right. Completely enamored, I did not think what this meant, or where I was until a voice spoke to me, calling my name.

_Slaato_. That name I had not heard since before I left home, and the voice was deep, resonating in my ears and my mind. My father's voice - the night he died, forgiving me for being born, forgiving me for the sin of killing him. I turned on my wings, suddenly still in the cold dark of space, the world beneath me lost in the distance and I listened, looking for my father.

_Papa_? I waited, time meaningless in the great expanse, and I called again, _Papa_? But he did not speak again and I turned back toward the place I had been, letting the darkness drag me down and down until I felt the world appearing around me, my wings shriveled to little nubs and my feet resting but not quite touching the carpet in the study. The room looked as I had left it, with my teacher frozen in that moment of observation, her eyes glittering, and somehow I knew she was very aware of me.

Saddened, I looked toward the chair and saw myself, leaning precariously against the chair back, my knees together and my mouth open. I could be dead for all that I did not see me breathing. I crossed the carpet, stopping before me, looking down on the sleeping child-not-yet-a-woman that was me. My hair had grown long and sleek during my years with Lady Helena and, although I often ate like a pig, I hadn't grown too heavy, mostly filling out in breast and hip. Looking at myself I knew I had inches yet to grow, but the humor of looking at myself in such a state had me reaching down to pinch my to pinch my nose.

Behind me I heard a deep rumble of laughter and I jumped, turning around to scan the room. No one had moved but then I spotted the stranger standing by the fireplace.

_Who are you_? I wondered and the man smiled without speaking. He was tall and thin, regal in appearance; his knee boots were brown like deerskin and, at his shoulders, his epaulets glittered an orangey-gold.

_We've met before. I am Saint Germain_. His voice was the rumble I had heard and the voice of my father as well.

_You're one of Lady Helena's Ascended guys, right_? I asked and the man grinned, waving it away.

_One could say so. _

I stared hard at the handsome man and my gaze moved back and forth between him and Lady Helena in her chair.

_I've seen you before. The first night I was here. Why did you pretend you were my father just now?_

_Did I pretend?_

_You're not my father?_

_Yes and no. He is here, now, with you as am I. _

_Oh, so you're telling my you're a ghost. That's bullshit and you know it!_

_The day will come when you will meet ghosts and spirits both angry and sad, Slaato. Your time of walking in the sunlight with your teacher is nearly over. You must make your own way; and when you do, we will meet again. _

I blinked and he was gone, the room suddenly spinning around and I fell back, landing with a hard thud on the chair. Sitting up I stared suddenly at Helena. Her eyes were boring into me like needles. She knew something had happened just now, although I could not find the words to describe it to her. She knew then, and she knows now, and so she shut me into this little trap of hers.

"So, teacher, what kind of visions am I supposed to see now?" My voice echoed in the dark crypt, bouncing between the walls and the door where I was sitting, huddled in the cold.

The dark did not abate, the cold grew only colder, and I sat shivering in my summer clothing in the crypt beneath the earth. How long I waited, I cannot tell – an hour, a day, a week. After a while, I knew hunger, my stomach rumbling its protest and still I shivered alone. I called out for Lady Helena, calling her teacher, mother, bitch, whore – all the nasty names I could think of and a few I should not have known. But it did no good, for the door did not open and so I sat, back to the cold metal and hated.

Hated my father for dying. Hated my mother for throwing me out because of this curse of Sight. Hated the man who took my virginity, and every subsequent man along the way. Hated the killer who caused me to flee the warehouse district for St. Paul's and hated falling on my face in front of so many well off people. Hated my teacher, hated her friends, hated the ghosts, and the voices, but mostly, and the thought shook me deeply, mostly I hated myself.

_Why was I born, if I'm just to be some man's vessel? Why was I born if my own people are only going to hate me? Is everyone going to hate me from now on? Maybe I don't care._ My thoughts swum on the visions of darkness and cruelty that had been my companions since fleeing my village. The dark figure moving in the shadows, the bright sheen of blood on a knife striking again and again – I remembered that night suddenly, with a clenching in my belly and a feeling terror.

_Jack..._ I had seen his face. I had heard his voice and felt his hatred toward the woman, toward me. I shifted on the cold stone floor, the feeling of terror rising in me, the sound of his footsteps in the dark corner to my left, pushing me to my knees, scrambling in the dark to find somewhere to hide. _How could he be here? I don't understand._

"What do you want?" My voice, quavery and small in the darkness, echoed back at me with laughter and madness. I crawled on my knees, pausing finally to rise, my arms out beside me, feeling for something solid, a wall, a crypt, anything to put between me and the madman that lurked in the shadows. I stumbled forward, striking a cold stone slab and moved around it, sliding to the floor beside it, listening for the man's voice, his breathing, his footsteps.

_How could my teacher do this to me? Why? Why_? I heard the breath beside me, near my left ear, his fetid breath hot and stinking. _How had he gotten so close?_ I leapt up, falling over the stone slab, bruising my belly and breasts as I crashed down again, rolling in the dark to get away. But the shadow leapt in the dark, catching me, covering me, pressing me down and I could feel his rough hands on me, his foul breath as he covered my mouth, sucking the breath from me. I could feel him pressing against me, moving my legs, piercing me with his cold, hardness and filling me with pain and anger and a cold, seeping darkness that oozed up from my womb, filling my belly and pushing up to my breasts, my nipples rising and oozing blackness. I could feel him pushing into me, his hard black chest pushing past my breasts, his chin into my throat – my flesh becoming his flesh and I opened my mouth to scream.

My world became red as I climbed to my feet, anger, envy, and righteous hate filling me with such power! I screamed in my defiance, my voice deepening, the timbre more like a man's and I rushed toward the door, pounding on it, pulling on the handle until it screeched in torn metal and wood. The heavy door boomed against the crypt wall and I flung myself up the dark stairs, the air swirling in red hues like blood. I barreled up the stairs, coming to the crypt gate exit in no time at all, seeing the dark clad woman by the gate I growled my hatred of that bitch who had imprisoned me and kicked the gate open.

Lady Helena turned startled brown eyes at me seconds before I put my hands around her neck, squeezing and pressing the soft flesh between my hard fingers. I pushed, shoving her to the ground and my teeth ground in my mouth, blood oozing from my lips and spattering line rain onto the woman's soft, flabby breast. One handed I ripped the dress from her body, seeing the swell of white flesh and I stabbed downward, the cold steel blade in my hand rising again and again with a crimson sheen. I raised my face to the cloudy sky and screamed and screamed until my voice was raw and then I fell back, the icy cold seeping into my bones and I closed my eyes, knowing once more the darkness around me.

I lay as if dead, my body so heavy I could not move. I knew only the darkness behind my eyelids, the seeping cold of the stone floor, and the deathly quiet of the grave. What was happening to me? Was this some test? Some trial that I must pass? I despaired ever getting out of that crypt, a feeling of helplessness overwhelming me. Warm tears leaked from my closed eyes and trickled down the sides of my face, gathering in pools in my ears, tickling my neck as they flowed on down into my hair. What was I to do?

"What do you want of me?" I cried out and my voice was my own, strained and raw from screaming in the cold dark. Panting, hot tears turning cold, I lay in the dark and listened to my own gasping breath, and the slight sounds of life that trickled to me from within the stones and the crypt. As the life moved within the stones, the little lives of rodents and insects, I slowly relaxed, realizing that life went on even in the face of death. And I sighed, a breathy noise that echoed and re-echoed in the cold, dark tomb. _Will I ever get out of here?_ I wondered and let the heaviness that held me to the stone floor press me further into oblivion.

The wind was blowing off the ocean and the chill of it seeped into my bones. I looked around, the nicker of my horse the only close sound besides that of the wind. I looked across the wide plains of tall grass, watching as it whipped furiously with the gale and I pulled the coarse material that was my cape closer around me. It had rained earlier in the morning, the ground was soft with mud, the smells rising beneath the horses' hooves, and I wondered if I would ever be warm and dry again. The horse turned and climbed down the hill, taking me into the next town.

On the ridge above the town I looked down, the slow river winding from the hidden source in the mountains and dumping into the sea. But here, here it was wide and slow, and grains waived peacefully in the fields. Beyond the west pasture, the sheep pens were full of black and white and brown. I'd never see those sheep again, and little love to them, though I'd slept the last few weeks amidst their living wool. A movement to the north caught my eye and I could see a handful of townspeople beginning the long climb up the hill, torches and pitchforks in hand. With a frown, I moved back, climbing the last ridge to take me far away from my home on the Thuliesian River.

A thousand bodies lined up along the corridor, row after row, their various parts mixed and jumbled like a child's puzzle. A thousand corpses lying piled in heaps and hillocks of rot and offal, the slime of fresh killed flesh oozing over the dry and brittle bones of those long since rendered to mere skeletal remains. The nacreous corridor, a loathsome green like sickly algae, was cold, and fetid remains filled the cold air with bilious decay. I stepped in a puddle of putrescence and felt myself gagging at the aroma of rich and fertile death.

The pain was a thousand thousand needles piercing my flesh, and each stroke was both blessing and curse. I could feel their joy at my pain, their hatred of me like an old blanket, and I closed my eyes to their presence. Instead I reached outward, seeking, ever seeking, to find the one whose name I did not know – but whom I had dreamed of night after night for more than twenty years. A child, a boy, a man... these things I did not know, could not know, but I heard him cry like a lone wolf in the wilderness and I sought him...

The little bundle lying against my breast, the seeking mouth tugging hungrily on my nipple, those intense almost seeing green eyes... He is so full of life and potential and as he sucks greedily, I remember the one who gave him to me, for he too sucked greedily at my breasts, almost tearing them in the intensity of his sexual need. He too has green eyes and hands roughened with work. But this night's work was beyond anything either of us could have dreamed, and the results...

I rolled over onto my side, the cold penetrating my shoulders and making me shiver. I looked around, but the darkness of the crypt remained. I sighed and climbed to my feet, feeling every ache in my bones and muscles as I brushed at my legs, trying to feel my feet, my legs. I stumbled in the dark, turning around and around and finally slamming into the door, the wood cold and rough against my cheek, but offering a blessing anyway for finding it. My hand ran across the rough wood, finding the iron handle and pulled, the scream of metal on metal piercing my ears before the door swung inward.

_It's unlocked?_ I inhaled quickly, my heart leaping in my breast and I stumbled out of the crypt, falling briefly on the stone stairs before climbing again and running for the surface. Each echoing step took me nearer and nearer to light and warmth and life. Each step I asked myself, had the door ever been locked? Had it been my imagination? Or had it been a trick of my teacher – a test?

At last I exploded out of the mausoleum, bursting into the graveyard to find the day nearly gone, the sun westering into a rainbow of promised rain. I looked about to finally spot Lady Helena, sitting on a stone bench near the graveyard gate, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes closed in prayer. A few more steps I took, onto the gravel path, and to her side, standing with my fists clenched at my side, my mouth gaping like a grounded fish, and my mind swimming with accusations, but my voice would not speak. Instead my teacher rose, not seeing me, and headed for the graveyard gate.

"Did something happen?" she asked, her voice calm, and I wanted to scream. _Yes! Of course, something happened! You knew it would, you bitch! _But the truth was, she had waited for me. She asked because she did not know. And, on the long train ride back to London, I had time to think about this little day trip and all that I had envisioned. For it came to me that this test was a rite of passage. My clairvoyance, my power, was awake. And it would never be silent again.

* * *

Reviewers:

ActivelyIndisciminate: Thanks for reading my little opus. As noted above, I have indeed played this game to death and it has inspired a lot of my ideas. There is a bit of research behind her story, from the developers, and I merely explored it further; if that comes off as intelligent, then "go me!" XD And, while I am aware of Anthony and have read Tolkien, I am a firm believer that Poe was GOD!


	4. For Good or Ill

**For Good or Ill**

I don't own Koudelka, but I highly recommend playing the game if you can find it. In case anyone is wondering, the events predate Koudelka, the game. Just my interpretation of what might have contributed to the 19 year old we saw at Nemeton. Rated M for a good reason.

* * *

My teacher had gone on to India for a time and I - I was left to my own devices. She had given me a small purse with a few shillings, but not enough to do much more than buy a loaf of bread. Poverty and hunger, my old companions, came back to meet me at the docks one night when I was searching for work. I was leaning on the rotting and smelly sidewall of a local tavern, slivers of wood ramming uncomfortably into my back, considering my options – go in and earn a drink, a bed and a meal – or leave, staying cold, hungry and safe, for going in would not be the safest answer to my needs. But, it was a familiar one.

Finally, the grinding of my stomach and the smell of greasy meat pasties decided for me, and I pushed off from the wall and entered the pub. It was dim in there, as are all pubs, the light of day or truth would be too bright for such squalid places. The air was fetid with stale beer, urine and the thick smell of meat. A few tables dotted the crowded, sawdust-covered floor, and there were a dozen booths set along the walls. The patrons - sailors, longshoremen, thugs and whores - paid me no mind as I looked as much like them as they did like me; poorly clothed, dirty and a little shady. Yes, that's me, a street walker, a whore, a doxy for your bed. Nothing has changed, not me, not the world. I'm still a poor woman with no prospects, no matter what learning my teacher gave me. I stepped up to the barman and listened to the ambient conversation. He didn't bother giving me a drink, knew by looking at me I hadn't a coin of my own. But it didn't take long.

After a few minutes, a large man waddled his way to the bar for a refill of his ale and he looked me up and down, like a side of beef at the market. Yes, I was his type… God help me. We went back to his table, and he had me entertain him by listening. He fed me a little, just enough I suppose to keep me docile, and nattered on about worthless rot. Then, with a hand the size of a ham, he grabbed my arm and dragged me up the back stairs, tossing a coin to the proprietor.

Upstairs was no better than downstairs. A small, unlit corridor lead to three doors, their wooden slats showing age and violence. He took the back one at the far end and shoved me in, pushing home the bolt to the door. It didn't matter - I knew what to do. I slowly took off my clothing – my threadbare jacket, a skirt, blouse and shoes, my long black stockings. These I laid aside and stared for a moment at the mattress lying grey and lice-ridden in the corner. I sighed and lay down, waiting. It wasn't long. The man, though big, could divest himself quickly, probably from practice, and when I saw him, I thought my ill-purchased dinner would come back up. He was filthy, unwashed and crawling with bugs. He had lesions where he should not, and a roll of fat around his belly. He lay on top of me and began, without finesse, and the smell of him made me forget about the lice, and the lesions.

Time passed, the room moving back and forth with the man's actions. He was no expert, no love-maker. His concentration was total, his arms on either side of me, pinning me to the lumpy bed, his body's weight crushing me to the mattress. I didn't care. I had been here before, in this place, in this position. When he was done, when he slept, then I could move. Assuming he didn't kill me. I didn't think he would.

I let his movement send my thoughts away, carrying them away from his stench, his grunts, and his foul breath. Drops of his stinking sweat pattered on my face like rain, my legs stretched over his shoulders ached, but I thought of other things, of fog along the riverbank, crickets chirping and the small cries of seagulls, so much like the cries of children. I remember the first time I saw the sea – father had taken a wagonload of straw to the lighthouse at the end of the point, feed for the horses and penned animals. I went with him, a treat for a lonely child and, after helping to offload the hay, I stood on the waving grass alongside the wagon while father went in for his pay. The birds were circling overhead, riding the cool wind from off the Irish Sea. They swooped and circled, and their cries were like children playing and I smiled up at them, wishing I were so free, so unburdened. I had felt their freedom from the swaying grasses and I could feel their freedom now, as the man on top of me grunted, his stinking seed filling me like piss.

Freedom. I didn't have it then. I didn't have it now. So, what did I have?

The fat man on top of me grunted, mashing one heavy fist on my breast, not satisfied with one time he continued to push into me, the meat for his table. I sighed quietly, giving him what he wanted, letting my body take the abuse while my mind stayed clean. My teacher had taught me that, how to separate my mind from my body, letting my spirit soar to new heights while my mundane self did what it had to do, what it needed to do. Like now, taking this man's abuse was nothing to me, I'm only flesh and blood but my mind, my soul, could soar with those seagulls I remembered.

The day before my teacher left for India, she had told me how proud she was of me.

"You have learned what I could teach you, girl. It's up to you to use it wisely. The day I found you, I saw in you the power of God in His Heavens, the power to Hear and to See. You've proven me right." She had nodded and accepted tea from the servant, watching me like a hawk the whole time. I sat across from her, my bony elbows resting on the tabletop and wondering more about what would happen to me now that she was leaving.

"You proved yourself that first day, by seeing _my_ guides, the Ascended Masters. And you proved yourself in the crypt – though you have yet to tell me what you saw. However, you have yet to find your own guides. I don't know why you're delaying that, or perhaps it is because you have some special talent you haven't found yet... I believe you are a natural, girl. You can learn anything you put your mind to. Like the traveling, the spirit walking that you did just last week."

Traveling on the Astral Planes, she had called it; loosing my spirit, my soul, to walk the world. Remembering that here, now, with the man pushing his way into me, his fat belly scraping across me like sandpaper, made me shudder inside and, in my belly, a fire began to burn; a fire that had nothing to do with the manhood deep inside me, or the stinking seed dripping from me when he was finished. I burned. The fire grew, filling my belly, consuming my chest, by breasts igniting, my hair crackling and my eyes... I felt my eyes dry and shriveling and suddenly the fire of my own consumption lighted the room. I moved then, tossing aside the puny man, sending him crashing to the far wall, and I rose from the grey and fetid mattress, my body burning with a fire I had never seen or felt before.

I looked at the man, the pathetic excuse for a human being, and saw the worms in his belly, the little demons that lived in his heart and mind and his soul... his soul was black with his deeds. He was beneath my contempt. I reached out and touched his mind, seeing all the squirmy little things that he hid from himself and from the world, and uttered one word, watching as his mind shriveled to a walnut as he grew slack and his bulk slid to the filthy floor, spittle oozing from his parted lips.

And then I blinked, the fire banking, the room returning to the dingy darkness and I looked down at the man, lying in his own spit and piss and wanted to scream. Quickly, I donned my clothes and ran.

And I kept on running, south. Out of town, out to the country where I could think, and hear, and listen and not be afraid. Only I was very much afraid. What my teacher said came back to me in words I had ignored when she spoke them. The day I had acted as medium for her to prove I had learned my lessons. I had spoken with the voice of a murderer, spewing forth bile and vitriol and hatred for women and whores and – Helena said I had called forth the spirit of Jack. When I asked whom she meant, she pointed at the nearby newspapers, their print old and the paper yellowed, but with clear headlines of murdered women in the East End. I didn't understand until now what she meant.

"You are more than a medium, girl. You have spoken with the spirit and soul of a killer, one who walked the streets of London. You can speak to the living as well as the dead. You have a gift lying within you. May God be merciful."


	5. Voices

Voices

I don't own them, so don't even bother.

* * *

The rain continued to patter on the roadway and make a quagmire of mud that I had to trudge through. My horse, an old nag of the first order, plopped and slogged through the slurry of brown ooze and stopped just outside the fence, her shaggy ears thrust forward, listening. The wind had died down, thank god, or I would be freezing; as it was, Nag had refused to cross into the yard and I had tied her up at the gate, the old creaking iron colder than a witch's tits.

I smirked at that thought, wondering just how anyone would know how cold a witch's breasts could be. Some drunkard in a bar had said that, and the laughter was appropriate for a stupid joke at a woman's expense. Not that I care. Not that they know about me. Just as well.

Overhead the sky was still a mass of grays and whites, with clouds lowering with pregnant bellies to dump their snow and rain. In the highlands, the snow was deep and thick; fortunately, I was only just out of Edinburgh, Scotland and it was more rain than snow. But rain… damn the Scots for having more rain than England. Damn the Scots for living so far north, and for having graveyards older than history, and for having ghosts, and just for being Scots! I was not in a good mood, and the weather did not help. I left Nag and slogged through the slippery mud up to the house, an older house built of stone and mortar and a lot of tears, no doubt. I looked around what could have been a pleasant garden with tall evergreen and a walkway of gravel, and then looked at the drive going up from the street and scowled. Mud. More mud. Damn the Scots anyway!

I finally made the house, stomping my muddy boots on the stone verge and looking in through dingy glass windows. No one had lived here for a while and the glass was crusty with dirt. Inside, I could barely make out furnishings covered with cloths.

"Well, this must be the place," I muttered and went to the front door, but it was heavy and well bolted. With a shrug, I headed around the back for the servant's entry. There the door was less sturdy and not so well bolted and I entered. The kitchen and pantry smelled musty with a touch of mold. I looked around, pausing to rummage in the cabinets until I found a box of matches and a storm lantern. There was a light slosh from the lantern showing very little fuel, and it was slow in starting to burn – it would not last long but perhaps enough for me to finish and get out of here.

Flickering light cast yellow and black along the hallway out to the front of the house and I took a cursory look around the ground floor. What furnishings there were had been covered and dust covered everything in a thick layer. My boots left a wet, sloppy trail from the back of the house and followed me up the stairs where patterned carpet now absorbed the mess. The second floor was as dusty as the first, and I stopped to look in the first room, turning the dingy brass handle. It was a child's playroom, toys and child-size furnishings left haphazard on the floor. I stepped in, checking the small dresser and vanity, the toy box next to the window with its wooden animals, tops, trains and other assorted things. I thought how lucky the child had been to have such treasures in his possession. Then I left, checking the next room down the hall and the next after. Finally, I reached the end and returned, taking the opposite side. Here I found the master bedroom.

Nothing different here; the bedding was covered with a dust cloth and I pulled it up to reveal the plush feather coverlet. The pillows were covered in lace – rich, delicate and intricately worked – a fortune in handwork rotting on the bed. There was a small chair in one corner and I set the lantern down on the dresser and sat down, looking at this room where a man and woman had slept and made love. I breathed in the cold dust, the mold from the moisture of the winter, and the feeling of oppressive silence, and wondered why anyone would think this place haunted.

I was traveling while my teacher remained out of the country, earning my way any way I could, sometimes as a scullery maid, sometimes as a whore, but this time, as a clairvoyant. The word still stuck in my mouth, so strange, so mystical, and so full of lies. I think of myself as a medium, but with so many charlatans and frauds using that term, I had begun to use the lie of clairvoyant. It didn't matter. It paid me pennies to do the work, a good meal, a warm bed. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes, I could help people - not that I wanted to.

My gift, my curse, was my ability to see. Sight was a powerful tool for the Rom, many of my village had the second sight and I, from birth, was cursed with it. But now, with the training I had of Lady Helena, and my own meager experiences, I was improving enough to get by. This time, a message had come of a haunting – a house left bereft by the death of children and ghostly occurrences leaving the house empty and un-sellable. Looking at the dust and accumulation of a past occupancy, I could see why. Sitting there, my elbows resting on my knees, I let my mind go, relaxing into the silence. There were no voices, no children, no ghosts here, only the silence.

I sat back, letting my head rest against the wall, not caring if I left a wet smear on the white paper. Sighing, I thought I could rest here a moment, since my trip here was for nothing, and I let my eyes close. My breath came slower, the chill of the winter making my chest tight, and I could feel the beginnings of a cold sneaking into my bones. If I wasn't careful I would become ill and then what would I do? My breath came more slowly and I could feel myself drifting off until I was nearly asleep. The weight on my chest made me open my eyes.

The stones blocks were larger than before, the shards of glass in them piercing my chest. It hurt, oh god it hurt and I wanted to scream, but there was something wrong with my mouth. I opened my cracked lips and mouthed the pain I was feeling but my tongue would not move... my tongue was gone – I remember! Ripped from my mouth by pinchers and flames and now, tortured! Oh God, why have you forsaken me to this place of suffering and damnation?

They took me from behind, my hands and feet bound by coarse ropes, and they raped me – my own guards! They cut me, cut my genitals off and waved them in my face as they raped me and then, as I lay in my own blood, they cut my chest open, removing my still beating heart.

They cut my fingers off, then my hands, slowly working up my arms and legs an inch at a time. Hack, cut, saw... how I could live through such pain and maiming! An inch at a time they cut me until I was a stump, until finally they began to cut out my organs, one by one by one...

Help me! Oh God help me! No, don't do this! Please! Please, oh god! No!

A seed, a weed, a tree, so dark, so old, so cursed. What have I done? What have I done?

Can you hear me? Can you help me?

_Can you hear me?_

I jerked to my feet, suddenly awake and shivering with the cold. Sweat ran down my body like rain and, without conscious thought, I ran from the house, leaving the lantern to gutter into darkness behind me. It wasn't until I reached old Nag and pulled her free from the gate, pulling myself up into the saddle that I realized I had dreamed it all. Dreamed it all, except the last.

I pulled Nag back with the reigns, pausing to look at the dark house and the soggy grounds. Here was no haunting. But what had I seen? What had I heard?

_Can you hear me? _ That had been distinct. Not just a dream. A sending. My heart was still pounding like a drum in my chest, and I felt sick to my stomach, leaning over the side of my knee and throwing up into the nearby bushes. When I was done, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and turned Nag toward the road south toward London.


	6. Faith

**Faith**

I don't own Koudelka. If you have the chance to play this game, I highly recommend it.

* * *

How many times have I heard prayers in my life, I wonder? Prayers for sinners, prayers for the living and prayers for the dead. It was all meaningless. I never gave a damn about prayers, not even the ones my teacher taught me. I had no intention of believing in some venial god, some demented _thing_ that gave men the excuse to abuse other men. Life was too short, and too hard, to believe in anything.

Yet faith, or the belief in some higher form, seems to do _some_ men good. I remember James O'Flaherty and his dogmatic faith, and think back on all his hopeless beliefs and dreams and wonder, was it his faith that saved us? I wouldn't have thought so, seeing him on his knees that day in the blue gallery. We had just fought some horrendous monster at the font, one of many that night, and then stopped at a portrait near the entrance.

I smile now, thinking back on what a pretty lady she was, all frips and frills and delicate language. I was so coarse, rough, and ignorant by comparison, but it was I, and not some court lady, _I_ who heard her voice from afar. It was _I_ who came at her call, not James.

We had finally broken into Patrick's mansion, the finding of his house key had not been without its perils and, for a time, I had been on my own within the monastery. But once we were together again, James, Edward and I climbed through narrow corridors and dungeons to the hidden entrance and entered ... well, James would have called it paradise. It was lavish, rich, emblazoned with gold, and hideous in its Rococo décor. The main floor was richly tiled, a large staircase rising up to the second floor, and along side, another passage leading to a golden room. A machine was encased in one wall, and it held the odd disk we had found earlier, and with a little of James's fiddling, it began to play. Edward called it a type of Gramophone, but it played clear music that was not unpleasant. While James had investigated the machine, I poked at the wall and found a hidden drawer and Patrick Heyworth's diary. I knelt on the richly decorated floor and read from it.

"..._But to my horror, the image of my resurrected wife displayed in a flower petal, looked just as she did before, yet it lacked a human soul."_

"What rubbish!" James exclaimed.

"Shut up, James," I admonished him from my knees and continued with the last words. "_Indeed, it was a monster. Dear God, is this the punishment you have chosen for me? What have I accomplished by victimizing nearly two hundred innocent people? My only hope in life lay in believing that resurrection was possible and dreaming of the day when my wife Elaine would join me here on earth once again. Now I have nothing but a cauldron full of blood and hexed spirits, and a soulless monster. Is this the end that has been awaiting me? Dear Lord, have you no mercy? I only have one path left to follow. I have lost too much. I cannot even find words to apologize to Ogden who has lent me his strength along the way. Now I only long to sleep in peace with my wife..."_

"It ends here," I finished and closed the book, securing with the golden clasp. Such an elegant book to contain such horrors.

"Could it be true?" Edward asked. He had stood the whole time, hands on hips, listening, and I looked up to see horror and confusion in his eyes.

"Yes, I believe so." I looked around and spotted a door leading to another room and, rising, pushed my way through. The next room was a gallery, portraits lined the walls and in the far corner, another fountain. But before I approached it, I could feel the evil presence there and indicated it to Edward. Then we moved ahead.

The battle against the misshapen monstrosity of the font was fraught with peril, as James fired his shotgun, Edward used his fists, and I summoned fire magicks. But we managed to defeat it and, with James's prayers, cleansed and blessed the holy font. It quickly bubbled and frothed with fresh water from some unknown pool and we washed and refreshed ourselves before returning to the front room. It was while I was walking back that I spotted the portrait by the far windows. It showed an elegant, delicate lady, dressed in a fine gown and her face, her eyes seemed so sad. It was Elaine.

James grew sad when he saw the pretty lady, his past with her warring with everything that was happening and, when I told him it was her voice that had summoned me here, he grew angry.

"So," Edward commented, breaking the silence. "This is Elaine."

I nodded. "Yes. She's the one I had the psychic vision of." I looked at James, his arms at his sides, his fists clenched – he was as tight as a bowstring. "Do you doubt it?" I asked.

"No," he muttered.

"Good," I said with a sigh. He wasn't fighting me any more. "Let's begin." I stood in front of the portrait, reaching out with one hand toward the delicate beauty so rendered, and closed my eyes, opening my mind, my soul, to the woman who had called me – whose voice I had heard all those miles away in Scotland. Slowly I could feel her coming, and then I felt suddenly weak and dizzy as the ghost of Elaine tore my power from me to manifest as a less-than transparent woman, floating in front of the painting. I felt my legs wobble beneath me and I sank to the floor, utterly exhausted, barely able to look up to the ghostly apparition. She hovered just above me, her gauzy dress floating on an ethereal wind, her feet disappearing into misty nothing, and she looked at James with eyes of joy.

"_It has been a long time indeed, Mr. O'Flaherty_," she said and her voice, although echoing from the world of the dead, was yet refined and gentle.

James caught his breath in his throat. "Oh... Elaine, is that really you?"

The apparition nodded her head. "_Yes, it is. It is such a pity that we meet again, and I can only present myself to you in this form_," she said, as if asking her guest to tea. Then she looked down at me and I climbed slowly to my feet.

"_This is the one that responded to my call, is it not?"_ I nodded. "_Thank you for doing his for someone like myself."_

James interrupted her, trying to grasp her non-existent hand. "Elaine, I – I haven't yet come to terms with this. Please, tell me how this happened to you?"

The apparition smiled sweetly down at him. "_Of course I will explain, James. Eighteen years ago, I was murdered by some thieves that broke into my home. I was helpless against them; Patrick and Ogden were out on business, so there was nothing that anyone could do."_

James shook his head. "No, I will not accept this. This should not have _happened_!" He moved away slightly, his fists clenched, his shoulders shaking with deep emotions. But Elaine continued, watching him with her ethereal eyes.

"_Patrick responded the same exact way. He could not accept my death. He spent years and years perfecting his craft in wizardry. He tried **everything** in his power to bring me back to life."  
_  
Behind me Edward stirred and I could hear his boots stamping in the dust. He was uncomfortable with this conversation, uncomfortable with the nature of this night. Odd, since he dealt so much in pain and death…

"Resurrecting the dead?" he said, his tone filled with hard pragmatism. "Is this for real? I mean, we're not talking about Frankenstein here…"

"Frankenstein?" I asked.

Edward spun me around, grinning apishly. He made gestures around his face and pretended he was a zombie.

"You know, that novel written about a hundred years ago?" Before I could respond Elaine spoke again and I shushed Edward's mockery.

"_He was taking it very seriously. And he had found the key to actually make it happen."_

"The Émigré Document," James supplied. Again, with that book he'd mentioned before. A frisson traveled up my spine, tingling behind my hair and I wondered what feeling of presage was begging for attention.

"Yes. With Ogden's assistance and the power of the ancient druids, he held a resurrection ceremony in this monastery. However..."

"However, something went wrong, didn't it?" I said and the ghostly woman nodded.

"_He only resurrected my physical body. As you can see, my soul is still doomed to roam the universe – forever separated from my body. And the terrifying thing is, that my body was resurrected as a heartless monster."_

"Oh God," James said and crossed himself, but I could hear the anguish in his prayer and despair leaked from him like water.

"_Although the monster may look like me, it is **not** me. Mr. O'Flaherty,"_ she said and looked at him, her hands reaching out toward him, "_please, turn my body into ashes with your power."_

James started, a look of anguished horror on his face and I knew the war raging within him. "Ashes? If I do that, we won't be able to bring you back to life!"

A frisson ran up my spine again, the voices of the past echoing in my head at his words. The screams of torture, and cries of despair I had heard that rainy afternoon, the visions of maimings and tortures I had witnessed both then and this very night, came rushing back to me in overwhelming emotion. How could he suggest such a thing? I turned toward James but was stopped by the spirit of Elaine.

"_Mr. O'Flaherty_," her voice raised in strident tones, a touch of righteous anger in her voice, "_I was robbed of my life by those thieves, and I **could** hate them as mortal enemies. But I choose to think that my death was pre-ordained by the Lord." _She paused to shake her ghostly head. "_Please, do not mourn my death. It was wrong for Patrick to try and resurrect me; to undo the work of God. Do not be sad; death is at the heart of God's vision. I want you to destroy my body," _she pleaded again and I could swear there was a touch of near desperation in her voice. What had she seen? What had Patrick created that would cause this woman, this spirit, to beg for destruction? I shuddered_. "...defies the wise providence of Heaven,_" she continued. "_It must not exist in this world."_

With those final words Elaine moved back, as if stepping into the portrait, and vanished. James fell to the floor, his cries of pain and grief echoing loudly in the gallery.

"Elaine!" he cried, "What a cruel world. I gave everything for your happiness and now... what am I left with? I have no meaning in my life! Damn it! What have I been doing with my life? Elaine! Elaine!"

I waited in silence for long minutes, and then left the gallery, Edward following me as I went back through the gilded music room. Looking back, I do not think that anything I could have said would have altered the outcome. And certainly Edward's silence was a blessing, for my head was hurting and my mind was dizzy with all that we had discovered this night.

"I wonder where Roger is?" I said and Edward stopped at the foot of the stairs.

"Who?"

"Oh, just an old monk ... I wondered if he would know anything about this," and I hefted the research notes. Edward shrugged, turning to look up to the second floor and the heavily gilded doors.

"Maybe he's around here?"

I sighed. "Maybe."

Roger did indeed know much of what was written in those pages. He, a monk, an educated man, had been the one to transcribe the original documents that Patrick had used. He puzzled over how such a thing had gotten into Patrick's hands, knowing that the original had stayed with the Pontiff in Rome. However, he did send us on our way - to find Elaine's body and destroy it. His last words were addressed to James as Edward and I left the old man in the library of the mansion. The priest has remained silent since leaving the gallery and it wasn't until we were nearly out of ear-shot that he spoke.

"You were a man of God," he said slowly. "And yet you transcribed that heinous document, used it on yourself. How do you rectify yourself to God when you do such terrible things?"

"It is a matter of faith, James. Faith, Hope and Love."

Faith. Hope. Love. These things I had never known in my life. But James had known them well and now, his faith was being tested. He had loved Elaine as only a young man can love a young woman, with all the fire and passion of his soul. And he had hope that, in giving her up to Patrick, she would live a long, happy and fruitful life. But now, well he knew, as did I, that he must – **_we_** must find and destroy the monster that wore the face of the woman he loved. Yet would he be able to? Would he be able to set aside his hope and love for this beautiful young woman and kill her resurrected body? Not knowing what would happen to her soul afterwards – would she be free to go on to the next world? Or would she be condemned to wander for eternity? Later that night I found out.

We had run into an obstacle with the sanctuary doors being locked and barred against us. James had proven handy with his schooling and, while Edward and I both got sadly drunk, he used his knowledge of chemistry to make nitroglycerin. We blew aside the sanctuary doors, huge things of hardened wood and metal, and faced the madness that was wrought of that Émigré Document: the entire church proper was filled with writhing churning masses of thorn-bearing vines. Each vine was bigger than a man, and the thorns were like swords: one swipe…

By accident we found the hidden chamber, beneath a moving crypt of Saint Daniel Scotius. Below, we found a heavily barred bronze door and – the cauldron. Actually, we should call it The Cauldron, as this thing was old when men were yet children in these Isles. Where such a monstrous thing was wrought, none of us could guess and, looking at the putrid contents as they bubbled and simmered, I could only guess it to be the hands of some Elder God or madman. A great gnarled root had overtaken the pot, sending shoots and stems the size of a man crashing through the chamber's roof - these were the vines we had seen above, while here the roots had cascaded down over the side and, trapped within, was a mummy.

James knelt at the mummy's feet and crossed himself. Yes, it was Patrick, his eyeglasses still resting on the bridge of his nose, frozen in death, the life sucked out of him. We then looked within the pot and James produced the relic he'd held safely this night, the desiccated arm of St. Daniel. With this, he hoped to raise holy power to destroy the devilish plant. Edward and I agreed to help.

That night we raised a holy power in the cauldron and set fire to the sanctuary. Little did we know there was no way out. Trapped, the sanctuary burning around us, we fled through a broken window and climbed the construction struts Patrick had left in place. Up we went to the floor above and the choir loft. There we met Elaine again.

A thick stem had risen from the cauldron far below and culminated in a giant flower. Shaped like a tulip, the flower quivered and shivered when we approached it and I felt a coldness in the room, my knees suddenly shaking. Suddenly the flower blossomed, delicate pink petals opening to reveal the nightmare that had been Patrick's wife. This woman, this _thing_ emerged from the blossom, her female form tattooed in arcane symbols, and leapt to the ceiling, punching its way across the plaster as Edward shot at it with his gun. I admit, I was screaming in panic, and when the thing flopped to the debris-scattered floor, I thought, '_This is too easy'_ – and it was. She rose again, broken bones cracking and splintering as she manipulated herself onto all fours and leapt at us. And we ran. We ran all the way to the top of the bell tower, the monster right behind us. More than once, she caught up and forced us into a confrontation that we barely escaped. The whole time my heart was beating in terror, unsure if any powers of mine could exorcise or destroy this thing. Edward kept up a running monologue of curses and encouragements, while James was entirely silent. This worried me, for he had shown a dark sense of humor earlier that night, and now his silence was like an admission of guilt.

We finally reached the top of the tower and now we were well and truly trapped. Crenellations along the roof looked down on the burning church, while above us rose the long spire of the bell tower, its huge bells moving slowly in the wind. A sudden scream from one side alerted us and we watched in horror as Elaine climbed over the side of the tower, her body mutating before our eyes. Gone was the female form - its dark and arcane markings bubbled and warped, becoming chitinous armor, her limbs elongated into insect legs, and her entire body twisted into some nightmarish insect. She screamed, her voice shrieking above us and echoing off the bells, and a bolt of lightening came from the black and roiling clouds overhead and struck the tower. The stones broke loose and fell around us, huge blocks crashing and tumbling onto the roof and down over the side of the church. Bells rang cacophonously as they too tumbled and fell, and over it all, her eyes glowing with malice, was Elaine.

In the next moment we were battling for our lives. Elaine's monstrous legs whipped out at us, stabbing us, pushing us back until we were pinned against the stone crenellations, where she then sprayed us with a black, poisonous fluid that has us all gagging and falling to our knees. As yet we had done nothing in our own defense. Gasping for breath, my insides burned like fire as I staggered to my feet and began to summon magic. I heard James muttering as he dug in his pouch, and the quiet 'thank you' from Edward. If I could hold on for a few seconds, gather the pain into energy and give it back to the monster, it would give the others time to recover. I silently offered a prayer, the first one in my life, to whatever angel or devil would lend me strength.

I need not have bothered, for the flare came from me bursting forth with all the pain and fear and loathing that had crawled up from my gut. I fell to my knees again, my vision fading to black and I felt James's rough touch as he pushed an antidote between my lips. I could only nod and catch my breath. I closed my useless eyes, listening as Edward attacked the monster; he had found that strange blade from the chapel and was swinging, slashing and hacking at the monster's body. With every hit, I heard it scream and felt a pulse of life energy leave her body, and I suddenly knew the blade was responsible.

Finally, I opened my eyes, the effects of the poison receding with the medicine and began to summon fire again. My mind was calling forth flame and my lips speaking the spell, yet my ears heard the crunch of bone and scream of pain from Elaine, followed by James's impassioned calling on God's Power – his own take on flare magicks, and in the next instant my own fire blazed forth.

This went on for long minutes, the monster attacking, and us defending; James and me calling on magic while Edward, dear, crazy Edward, plunged in with the sword, his own health never slacking because of the magical blade, until finally Elaine breathed on us once more, a black miasma of poison and death that surrounded us and permeated our skin, our very souls. Gasping and crying out in pain, all three of us collapsed to the stones and Elaine scuttled in closer for the kill. I lay curled on my side, my guts twisting and churning in pain, Edward collapsed beside me and I wondered, briefly, if I had the strength to get an antidote from my pouch. James, lying just in front of me, was holding his pectoral cross and staring up at the monster of his old love; his breathing was erratic and he was sweating, but there was a light in his eyes that frightened me more than the monster. I turned my concentration to getting the antidote.

"Dear God, is this my fault?" he said quietly behind me. "Do you blame me? Are you punishing us – punishing me now because the path of my faith was tainted?" I heard the scratching on the stones as he rose and I turned toward him.

He had climbed to his feet, his legs shaking with pain and fatigue, yet he did not falter. He looked up at Elaine-the-monster, her wings twittering and fluttering as she again called on dark magic to finish them off, and he clutched the cross, pulling it from its cord. A look of determination filled his eyes and I knew I was running out of time. I struggled in my pack for the antidote, pulling leaves free and stuffing them in my mouth even as I rolled over and did the same for Edward.

"I accept my fate, O God," I heard James say clearly behind me. "If it is Your wish then I accept my fate. He who has an ear let him hear: if anyone is to go into captivity, then into captivity he will go," he said and I heard that familiar tone of fanaticism rising with his voice.

"James!" I called out, but he either didn't hear me or ignored my entreaty, moving closer to the monster.

"If anyone is to be killed with a sword, then with a sword he will be killed. I am what I am, I am content with my lot," he shouted now, his voice a paean of praise and faith raised toward the heavens and I felt an answering frisson of fear. He had raised up his cross, and the dark, storm tossed clouds overhead suddenly parted, a shaft of brilliant white light striking down toward us.

"I - I always loved you, Elaine." His last words. The last words of a man of God, a man of faith, a man. And, whispering on the winds, as the light lifted him up and swirled around them both, shattering the malice and evil that had been the monster and revealing at last the sainted woman inside, was Elaine's voice.

"_Let's go home James, let's go home. I have such fond memories of those days." _

In the next moment the light swirled around them both, and lifted them into the heavens. I never saw James again. Edward and I barely escaped the raging flames burning their way through the church. And when the sun rose the next morning amidst the smoke and ruins, Edward and I went out separate ways. But with me, with him too, went a little bit of James. For James taught me about faith and love. How a man, or a woman, can love someone so much that they would sacrifice their own hopes and dreams for the future for the sake of their loved one. And, when faced with the reality of death, they will gladly offer up their own lives, nay, their very souls, for the ones they love.

It was a lesson I would remember and repeat myself.


	7. Bells of St Paul's

**Bells of St. Paul**'**s**

I don't own Koudelka or Shadow Hearts and I get really tired admitting to that. … It's mine I tell you! Mine!

* * *

Roger asked me if I should follow him, follow Edward back to - wherever he was riding to on my sway-backed old nag. As the old monastery had burned, we had spent the night together, as men and woman will, and he was, after all, a handsome man, if a bit rough around the edges. We had flung ourselves beneath the blankets and came together with a fire and passion that rivaled the burning Nemeton. But when the sun rose brightly the next morning, we had our breakfast and I said goodbye. I told Roger I'd see him again someday, as if it were a premonition, a vision of the future, without hope or need to change. But it was a lie.

Oh, it truly _was_ a vision. I felt we would meet again in the fullness of time. But deep within me, within the core of me that still shivered at his touch, was the niggling thought that yes, I _would _follow him.

I spent a little more time at the monastery, helping Roger and listening to his wizened voice nattering on about wizards, bishops, experiments and, of course, himself. I laughed to think that this old monk could talk up a storm, but eventually I moved on, leaving Roger to his new life.

And so, winter turned to spring and I was once again in London, the muddy roads leading me relentlessly to my old home. Of course, my teacher was not there. She had been dead this past eight years and there was really nothing to interest me in this horrible cesspool of a city. Except that I was drawn here by my own purpose, my own visions and something else I was never able to name. I did know several people here, prostitutes and harlots, women of ill repute and my friends. When my teacher had died, leaving me nothing to fall back on, I found myself in the deepest poverty imaginable, selling myself for a meal or a warm blanket. Nothing I had not done before, but at least here, in London, I had company.

Lizzie owned a small pub in Whitechapel in the East End of London. Not the safest place, not the nicest place, but certainly cheap; not much more than a dirt floor with a few barrels and boards for tables and benches. She served the local workers, the black-faced factory men, a few draymen and of course their doxies. She also owned the local house situated conveniently behind the tavern and with a houseful of willing women to service the neighborhood. Well, as willing as poverty can make a girl. I went to work for her serving tables and cleaning slops. It paid pennies a day, but I had no choice. I had never had choices so it really didn't affect me. I stayed in the house with the rest of the whores, taking the upper attic room to share with two other women - the main rooms downstairs on the second storey were reserved for "paying customers" who we were all obligated to bring in, even me.

Things went on this way until late spring. One of the girls at the brothel got pregnant and took a vacation somewhere until she could return, ready to work. We all knew about these vacations: Maddy told us about them one night over soup. Some men liked the women full of child, but Lizzie said it cost her more to deal with the problems and shipped them off to have the child removed. None of us thought she meant giving birth. I was serving in the bar, taking in what few tips I could and offering a warm smile, a negligent caress to whatever man was willing to pay the price, when _he_ walked in.

I almost didn't recognize him, cleaned up and wearing a suit. But it was Edward. He dropped a travel bag on the floor next to a table and sat, tapping the table with a Sovereign. Never one to resist gold, I sidled up to him and sat on his lap. It was worth it for the look on his face.

He had a sense of humor did Edward. After he got over the shock, we laughed and he bought supper and drinks and, when my work was over, we went walking, his bags tucked securely in my shabby room in the brothel. The East End is still the roughest part of London, with neither pleasant walkways nor pleasant people. Ruffians and roust-abouts inhabit every nook and cranny of the place, but it also is home to some of the homiest people around. We found our steps taking us up Pettycoat Lane, the shop fronts closed and barred at this hour, and the street faire long gone. In the near distance were houses, some with lights, many without, and not a few dilapidated old manse's that had seen better days.

Edward took me by the hand and lead me to the littered lawn of one old house, the front stone works falling down and the old gnarled oak in the yard dead for many years, its last leaves having fallen before I left London some years ago. He broke in a ground floor window and we climbed in.

The house was full of trash, broken furniture and toys, a rolled up carpet against one wall and a fireplace filled with refuse. The floor was covered in dusty dirt, but we didn't care, we both knew why we had come to this desolate place and home decor was not on our minds.

In Nemeton, I had found Edward half dead. I saved him, even as he saved me by lending me his gun. I was a lousy shot, but managed to kill the monster that had attacked him. Together we had braved the horrors of that old monastery, together we had fought for our lives, our very souls, - to free the one trapped there: Elaine Heyworth. And together we had escaped the ravaging fires only to find a fire of our own in his tent. That was then, our coming together in a passion for life, a celebration of our survival; this was now, our drive, our need for each other more lust than love. I cared for this man, found his rough and brutal side attractive, his willingness to kill to protect his life or any other's was exciting. Yet I was also drawn to the poet within him, the one that could quote Byron while fighting for his survival against hell's minions.

Edward had also been forceful in the time I'd known him. He wanted to live life _his_ way, without regrets. I had lots of regrets, but at this moment, I cared nothing for them. At this moment, watching him push aside some trash and pulling down the ratty carpeting, I knew that nothing we did here tonight could ever bring me regrets.

When the carpet was ready, we rolled ourselves into its dusty depths, not caring about our clothing, or how dirty it was. We were too busy coming together in an explosion of desire, our bodies melding and melting into each other; the fire in my belly rose to match his hard maleness and we were together again, surviving the hell of Nemeton, outliving all our foes and stoking the fires of Heaven's perdition. Fire and passion ruled us, our breathing as one, our bodies, slick with sweat and the fluids of our lovemaking, and when it was finally over, when we had slaked our hunger and thirst for each other, he pulled his jacket over us and we slept.

I could say we went our separate ways after that, but it wouldn't be true. The next day he slipped out and came back with a boxed meal; hot bread, soup and two crisp winter apples. We shared the repast and, leaning close beneath his jacket, we warmed each other. He told me stories of his sordid youth, much like he had that drunken night in Nemeton - both of us in our cups that night, my own head buzzing with the voices of ghosts and the taste of expensive wines - while I remained silent. He knew what I was doing and why. He knew me for a moment of our lives, and the gleam in his eyes told me volumes; he was enjoying our time together, another conquest, another story to add to his history of stories. But I didn't mind. No regrets.

After we ate we made love again, riding the waves to crest again and again until, long after nightfall, we sank into the oblivion of satiation. And that's when he told me.

"I'm taking a ship out tomorrow. Leaving for America."

The words no more than a statement, no preamble, no explanation… but truthfully I didn't need one. This time together was a mere tick of the clock; he had his life to live while I… I was looking for something else. I hadn't realized it until that moment.

The next morning we arose to rain, a solid downpour that drenched everything in wet and grey. We ran back to the bar for his bag and I went with him to the docks. On the way he nattered on about his plans for the future, his ideas for a book, or a magazine article. It was all a quiet, yet enthusiastic drone in the sodden morning and I paid little attention to it, my thoughts on the moment, on the soon-to-be parting and on the empty darkness that had been my lot before and would be again. Finally, we were there, the dark water splashing cold onto the quay and the grey downpour diminishing not a bit despite our discomfort.

We said our goodbyes beneath the raindrops, his strong arms enveloping me, his warmth washing over me as our lips meet, our faces wet with just a taste of salt. Was I crying? And then he was gone, climbing aboard, waving to me from the deck and I, huddled in my short coat, waved back, watching over the long minutes as the boat pulled free of its moorings and began to float ever so slowly into the Thames.

I stood there, watching the boat as it chugged down past the Tower Bridge before turning to leave. And just as suddenly, the rain stopped, the spit and spatter of raindrops abating and the clouds overhead rending themselves as they pulled apart, the winds picking up and carrying them along toward the coast. I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself, standing like a soaked kitten on the quay, the bustle around me a backdrop to a sudden loneliness. I could feel the years behind me and the years ahead of me stretching like an unbroken line and I turned toward the dock and knelt in the puddles, throwing up into the dark water below.

Later, cold and alone, I walked back up the quay, the wind whipping what little I wore and making me shake with icy shivers. The clouds still scudded overhead, bellies no longer pregnant with rain, but with an occasional rent here and there letting in the grey daylight. Pausing, I looked back down the river, my body and mind numb when, in the distance, I could hear the peals of Saint Paul's, the bells chiming the call to service, their deep boom an echo in the wind, like the crash and peel of those great bells at Nemeton as they fell to the stones below, as the earth itself screamed in pain as the great machine rose into the storm-tossed sky... Visions, always visions. Shivering, I turned away and headed for home.


	8. My Happiness

**My Happiness**

Disclaimer: Looking forward to Shadow Hearts 3 – From the New World, I can only claim the idea of this story. Sadly, Koudelka and Halley belong to someone else.

* * *

The pain was growing, coming like a wave and rolling over me, gripping me in a vise before letting me scream it out. Lizzie was holding my hand, gripping it painfully, a cool cloth wiping my face as the contractions eased and I panted, sweat pouring down my face, trickling into the hollow of my throat and pooling there.

"There's a good girl," Lizzie said, her coarse voice a rough caress, her rough hands a soothing comfort. The other girls in the brothel were busy, and the pub downstairs noisy with customers. But Lizzie was here with me and I knew we'd be fine. If only the pains would stop.

Another wave was building, cramping my guts and I grit my teeth, my face contorting in pain and Lizzie admonished me to breathe.

"Let it go girl, breathe. If'n ya stay all tight like that you'll never get it out. Come on, breathe for me."

And so I breathed, gasping in each painful breath as if it were my last, as if I were drowning in pain. And again the contraction took me, the explosion of pain from my innards washing me in a river of agony. How had women stood this pain through the centuries, I wondered? How could I manage this?

He had pushed his way into me with fire and passion, his hardness filling me and carrying me to heights of pleasure and pain. I would have stayed, pierced by his spear if I thought either of us could stand each other for longer than it took to think about it. Edward. Damn him! Damn him for doing this to me!

I screamed again, my voice raw and my throat sore from repeated screams of pain.

"I can't do this," I panted. "I can't do this, oh God, Lizzie, ah!"

Lizzie wiped my face with a wet cloth, her level voice a soothing drone. Below, in the pub, I could hear the clank of dishes and the sudden shout of drunken voices rising above the usual din. There was a crash below and Lizzie, a frown creasing her already wrinkled face, rose from the chair next to me.

"What are they doing down there?" she growled. "Sharon! Sharon, come watch Koudelka," she called and disappeared down the dim upstairs hallway. I lay there, my knees up, my swollen belly a mountain of flesh before me, and closed my eyes, feeling the strong hands as they held me, caressed me, and tickled the flesh between my legs; feeling the breath breathing over me, the warm wetness as his mouth suckled my breasts, feeling again his hardness as it entered me, filling me and bringing me such pleasure. Edward. Damn it, Edward. I could not get him from my mind. He had done this, filling my belly with his seed, sailing away to America and leaving me, screaming my lungs out as another contraction shook me.

Sharon was beside me, holding my hand, her small voice barely above a whisper. I ignored her, feeling only the grinding pain, the tearing beneath me.

"Oh god, it's coming, Sharon, _he's_ coming!" My scream was a long, protracted wail of pain and terror and anger that reverberated in my ears and shattered the window glass, broke the walls of the nearby buildings and shot the stars in their heavens. In reality, none of that happened. Sharon told me later that a chair lifted from the end of the bed, smashing against the far wall, and items swept along the dresser top, crashing to the floor to pile up in broken shards against the bedpost, while, in the hall, the dust had finally settled as piles of boxes and stuff from the attic had suddenly arrived, crashing through to pile up in a mountain of debris just down the hall and nearly blocking the stairs. Sharon admitted to terror at these things, but then Lizzie had returned and all I remembered was the wall of pain, the river of blood and my voice, raw and alien to my ears, cursing in a hundred tongues and wailing with the first slap to my bottom.

I awoke to a light pressure on my belly, a soft bundle lying across me, and the warmth of blankets and the smell of fresh soap. Lizzie had washed and cleaned up the linen and me and – looking down at my belly – the little red bundle in the faded yellow blanket. Trembling, I took one hand from beneath the covers, my mind a terror of what it would find, and flipped back one corner. Face pinched, eyes closed in slumber, face tinged red but fading to a soft peachy flesh, was a baby. I reached in and touched the little fist clutched at his mouth ... astonished I knew it was a boy! My boy, my baby. I felt myself trembling with terror, with excitement and, belatedly I realized, with anxiety. This was so new, so different. There was now someone else with me, not just the memories, not just the voices.

"So child, you're awake?" Lizzie asked, peeking in from the hall. I grinned at her and looked down at the baby again.

"Mine, huh?"

Lizzie's laugh was a rolling chuckle that started at her bosom.

"Yes child. He's yours. I brought ye some soup."

Propped up in bed, I sipped the broth in silence and looked down at the bundle of life resting on me and I marveled at the sensations that flooded me. Yes, the terror had receded, banked now with the realization that it was more a fear of tomorrow – a new mouth to feed. And yes, anxiety over the care and feeding of a baby. But that other feeling, that warm feeling that seemed to settle with the soup at my heart, that one puzzled me the most.

"He's so small," I finally said, setting aside my empty bowl.

"Aye, well he'll grow, they always do. Have ya thought of a name for him?" she asked, helping me to settle him in my arms, letting me hold him for the first time.

Startled I looked up at Lizzie and shook my head. _Edward. No, James... oh please!_ _Patrick, Eric, Tadhg my little poet or Bogdan – my own gift from God._.. a hundred other names flooded through me; names of the living and names of the dead and none of them, not one, seemed to fit the bundle of love lying so peacefully in my arms. I bent closer, breathing in his warm, baby smell and kissed his head through the blanket. With my eyes closed, and his warm weight in my arms, I felt good for the first time in my life. I felt complete, holding in my arms the only thing that mattered in this life; the one who loved me.

Warm tears burned behind my eyelids and then spilled over, splashing down onto the baby's head and when I opened my eyes, the lights were blurry, scintillating brilliants of rainbow colors.

"Ha-..." my voice caught in my throat. "Hal," I said. "Ha – Halley."

Lizzie nodded. "It's a good name. He'll grow into it and make something of it."

_Yes_, I thought. _He'll be the light in my life. The one I love, the one who loves me. My son, Halley_.


	9. An Existance For Myself

**An Existence For Myself**

Disclaimer: We all know I don't own them, so don't bother getting your attorneys.

* * *

I had gambled and lost. But all was not lost yet. It was true that Yuri and Alice had failed in part of their mission, to rescue me from Calios. Well, they tried, as did my boy, Halley. I was so pleased to see him; he'd grown so tall and strong. He was willful and adventurous, but he had a good heart, and I knew that Yuri could teach him much about himself. But for now, they were left behind in Calios, the mental hospital that had been my prison for the past three years. And I prayed they would follow my last words carefully and find Roger Bacon in Wales.

Meanwhile, beaten but not cowed, I went with he who called himself Bacon. This man, this warlock, who had been the overseer of my tortures, the instrument of my pain – as much as Rausen was the defiler, Simon was the mastermind. My body hurt, my soul ached for Halley and Yuri and Alice and my past, for it _was_ my past which led me to this course and I could not blame any but myself.

I stood up, my arms and legs bound with straps, defiant of Simon's attacks on Halley. My boy - my baby no longer. I gambled that Yuri could help me, free me before I could be forced to accede to Simon's demands – all to save Alice, to save Yuri, to save the world. But I failed, and Simon took me, accepting my parole for my son's life, while Yuri and Alice…

We arrived in Wales a pair of heartbeats later, Simon's grip on my arm firm but not hurting; he had need of me. We descended the sanctuary steps and I could see the blown out remains of the ancient cauldron used by Patrick in his experiment. The air above ground had been breezy but warm, smelling of grass, sea spray and old burnt ruins. However, below the air was oppressive with age and ire. _He_ was gone, sealed by my hand fifteen years ago, but his _spirit_ remained sealed within the chambers beyond, and the ghosts of the dead of this place – from the ancient Celtic ruins, up through the Christian church, the sacrifices of pagan and mad scientist, still hung heavily in the dark chamber. I felt a weight on my chest of a thousand thousand voices crying in pain and horror, and quickly shut down my mind, becoming numb to the screaming dead.

Simon opened the sealed door to the underground ruins and dragged me along beside him. The voices of the insane dead echoed in the rocks and dirt of this place, the slither and skitter of underground creatures were a warning of impending attack, but none came – the aura of the warlock frightened more than children. We passed by the fallen hypocausts, their stone faces broken, and down the stairs toward the pool. Behind me I could make out the red glow where I had sealed _him, _the stone pool boiling and bubbling in steaming heat, but Simon pulled me along quickly and I lost sight of it as we circled around and came to the pool. Here I had once fought Gug, a gigantic monster that lay in wait at the sacred font. Below, in the pool now filled with salt water, fish swam in the depths and only a vestige of the once beautiful font could be seen in the alabaster pillar set within the water. The runes that had once engraved the ground, the scrollwork that had once adorned lintel and wall were long gone, destroyed by the fires that had consumed this place.

Finally, we reached the last door, the stone stairs flanked by giant crosses carved with circled runes – I felt an expectant hush around me and opened my mind to the waiting spirits beyond. But as the doors slid open on the dark space beyond, I felt nothing. Simon pulled me in, and we began to climb steep steps, a willow-wisp of light dancing just above one of his outstretched hands and I could make out graves – row after row, tier after tier. Some wore crosses, their age showing in broken crosspieces and broken stones. Others wore merely a stone spike in the ancient soil, and from these graves, from these marks of deaths long past, I felt nothing. No voice, no calling, no emotions of ire or despair – only silence. These then were the builders of this place, whether human or no, their bodies left in this place of power as a warning or a signpost.

I looked up the long expanse of dark stone steps and caught a flash of light as Simon's ghost-light caught on something metal above and I felt my heart skip a beat – what was it that waited above us? Was it something ancient and forbidden? Or something Simon himself prepared? I knew the answer at the end of the long climb as we stopped on a dais - a circular platform surrounded by more stone crosses and, at one end, a small column, it's plinth holding a caduceus of stone and on that plinth as well, what had caught the light: an ancient tome, its copper cover rimed in rubies – and in Greek letters the words "Rylyeh". One of the forbidden books.

"So it was you, all those years ago, who stole the books from the Vatican," I said and my voice sounded hollow to my ears.

"Yes, I stole those books, and sought out helpers to work for my cause."

"But they failed."

Simon had left me standing at the altar, his own steps continuing around the stone platform, marking an outline on the stones.

"Yes. But now I will not fail, thanks to you," he said and I turned to see his marks actually overlaying older scars on the stones: rings within rings and runes along the edge.

"A Ring of Judgement," I breathed and shook my head. "You're a fool, Simon."

The silver haired warlock looked up at me from his work and smiled.

"We shall see, Witch of Dark Flames. For tonight we will raise the Temple of Neam to summon a God and cast judgement on all mankind."

He turned back to his preparations and I closed my eyes, listening to the silence around me, the distant echoes of the haunting dead beneath us in the Nemeton basement and, in my heart, I listened for the voice of Halley and his friends and offered a silent prayer to whatever god would listen, that they would come.

Simon's preparations and his silent gloating pride continued. My eyes closed, my mind calm, partly from my own desire and partly from his spells – for Simon did not trust me to be a faithful witch – nor should he. With my eyes closed, my body standing quiescent by the altar, I sent my mind roaming outward, reaching for the familiar taint that was Yuri or the brilliant warmth that was Alice or the whirlwind of emotions that was Halley. There, next to the monastery ruins, I could feel Roger, his ancient wisdom and his steady yet inquisitive mind active, alert, and full of life. Just beyond, in the outskirts of Aberystwyth, I could sense the coming and going of people, some heading for the new university built there. Reaching further, I crossed the land, reaching for Halley and found instead, a memory.

It was Alice, nervous and frightened, yet amazingly determined. She was alone in a dark and gloomy graveyard. She took a few hesitant steps in and clutched her breast with shaking fingers, her eyes as large as saucers. I could feel the terror and fear of the place clutching at her, ripping at her resolve. Why was she here – in this place? And where...? She crossed a path, climbing up to visit some tombstones, huge things with glowing symbols etched in the stone. I recognized them even as she read them, fire, earth and water, three of the six elements. She reached out, touching the stone and a feeling of bravery, very faint, trickled up from the stone. Whose thought was that? Then the next, and a feeling of repentance and sorrow, nearly overwhelming to me... ah, it was Yuri. This must be him ... I could feel through Alice's senses that she was searching for him, but this wasn't now, this was the recent past. I remained with her as she checked each of the other markers before taking the path to an ancient mausoleum.

What was I seeing here, in the eyes of memory? Masks, floating like ethereal spirits before the door, their voices raspy and cackling with humor - expensive humor. I've heard laughter like that before, when the inquisitors plied their questions. Alice is standing before them now, listening to them.

"_Who'd have thought she'd come all this way to the mind's darkness? You wish to sacrifice your body, your heart, your very life over to the lad?"_ The questions were from a staff shaped mask and Alice looked up at it.

"_Who are you?"_

"_The boy's soul you're searching for is seeking death, and preparing for it."_

Startled, Alice exclaimed, "_Seeking death?" _ I could hear her voice clearly now, her thoughts as she was remembering this.

Another mask spoke up, "_Would you drag a poor soul who's finally about to find tranquility back to the burdens of life?"_

But Alice suddenly stiffened, her heart filling with resolve, as she turned toward the mask. "_I won't let Yuri die."_

Another mask, this one a gathering of swords, remarked, and its tones were heavy with sarcasm, "_To this soul who was unable to obtain his father's protection or his mother's affection… What exactly do you have to offer?"_

I could feel Alice turning inward with her thoughts. What did she have to offer the boy... offer Yuri? ... or was it the masks ... she should not offer anything... they had no power over her...

"_I… I don't know. I don't know what I have to offer Yuri. I just know that we can get through any hardship if we stay together."_

I could feel it in her, in her memories. She was willing to give anything for this boy... The sword faced mask spoke again and my blood chilled. "_Set one foot in there… and you must bear the lad's karma with him. Even so, will you go? The Four Mask's curse is binding. In return for opening the Gate, we will one day come for your soul."_

"_I don't care, as long as I can reach out to his soul."_

I began to feel the memories fade, drawing back as the sword mask spoke one last time, "_Are you willing to sacrifice your own soul to rescue him? If so, proceed…"_ and I knew I was seeing Alice's dreams, her memories of an earlier event and I knew she suffered a curse for Yuri.

"What are you doing?" a deep voice said and I opened my eyes to see Simon standing before me, his eyes glaring with suspicion. He raised one hand to my face, his fingers aglow with dark energies but I shook my head.

"Listening. Something you should do more often," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. Simon moved away, his laughter ringing falsely in the dim chamber.

"I have listened enough over the centuries. I have heard the voices crying out in the wilderness, the moaning tears of the countless dead over man's cruelty to man," he said and I knew he spoke a part of the truth – the truth he allowed himself.

"Yet you would do this thing," my eyes followed his movements as he paced the chamber. "Condemn even more innocents to your summoning. Commit genocide on a scale that mankind has not dreamed of."

The warlock turned to me and I could see him smile, the vacuous, ingenuous smile that graced his otherwise handsome features.

"You amuse me, witch. Remain. I have... an errand to attend to," he said and gestured, first to hold me and then to teleport away. My heart fluttered in panic. Where was he going? Had I misread him? What trap was he springing? The answers I did not know and I feared the not knowing.

Time slipped by and I counted my heartbeats. Soon they slowed until they thumped to the beat of crying souls, those souls I could hear in the basement beyond this chamber. Despite my calm, I was worried, for this place, this time, held so many memories, so many voices. And not just the voices of the dead.

"It won't budge. What are we going to do?" Young, handsome in his own rough way, with piercing blue eyes and the heart of a poet. Yet here he stood, rough hands beating on the solid iron-wrapped doors to the sanctuary and cursing the moment.

I looked up at the doors, the heavy iron bosses solid and cold and the wood of the door hard as the iron.

"How ironic," I said, anger and bitterness dripping from my lips, "to have made it this far," _after a night of terror and horror and fighting untold monsters_... "and not have access to the temple."

"Koudelka, Edward," James spoke from behind us and I turned to see those craggy features, set and fatalistic in some vainglorious decision. "You both must go now."

"What?" Edward shouted.

"It is my friend who is apparently responsible for this disturbance and therefore _I_ am partially responsible for this trouble. I have no intention of asking for your sympathy, nor your help," he said. _Ah, here it comes_, I thought. _The noble sacrifice of the Christian martyr. _"From this point forward I can manage on my own," he finished.

"Don't kid yourself James," I hissed. "We didn't come along just for _your_ sake." But, like a true knight, Edward stepped forward.

"No, Koudelka, you should go back now. It will be far too dangerous."

_Right on cue_. "Edward," I said and I can scarcely believe I said this, "Edward, you are the one who should go home! _You_ are not _meant_ for this world. Granted, you are a good fighter," and I looked down at his clenched fists... those same strong hands that had saved me how many times this night? "having had _plenty_ of experience, and I won't deny the fact that you have that _killer_ instinct either..." _just ask Elias the thief_... "but when all is said and done, you are an _average_ Joe. _I_ am not." Edward raised those hands to protest and I waved him off. "I was meant to exist in this realm. It is the only place I can carve out an existence for myself."

"Quit lecturing me!" he shouted and I stepped back, his raised fists dangerous. "I want no part of a lukewarm existence filled with regret! No," and he shook his head, dropping his fists to his sides, clenched with passion now, not anger. "No, my way is not to worry about consequences, and to do whatever it is _I_ want to do. Chance means nothing to me; life's a gamble, and ... and once you place your bet, you better play to win or else you end up dead." He nodded once, his eyes looking at James before sliding to the cold stone paves beneath our boots. He was so passionate. What fire flowed in his veins... not his class, but his belief in himself.

"Edward," I said and then laughed in spite of myself. "Edward, you really are ridiculous."

Edward looked up and caught my eye, his blue orbs catching me and promising me things I knew he could never deliver. He smiled and the corner of his mouth turned up just a little, a tiny wrinkle showing under his left eye and I felt such warm feelings for this crazy, adventurous man.

"That's what they tell me," he said.

The memory of Edward and James... dear James and his foolish sacrifice... echoed with the ghosts in the monastery basement. Actually, I did him little service calling him a fool. He did what his heart commanded him, not his dead god, and his sacrifice saved not only Edward and me, but Elaine as well. A tittering laughter rose up the long stairs and I looked down to see movement... had Simon left the doors open? No, for only one in the physical world could open those heavy doors.

Instead of peering into the dark, I closed my eyes again, letting the air bring to me the sounds and scents of this place. The cold that was the machine lying buried off-shore, whose very life cords were wrapped around and under this place... the stones and soil with its teaming life, the sea, roiling and boiling in winter, now calm in its late summer warmth. The air, smelling of fish and brine and dung from the nearby fields, and the cries of herring gulls, and a few shrill eiders. Life surged around me in the world above, while death and disease surrounded me below. This was my place, the place to which I had become accustomed over the years, the world in which I had carved my position. And as this was my place, my world, it would fall to me to step in where others could not.


	10. Letting Go

**Letting Go**

Disclaimer: Don't own them, rats!

* * *

Yes, this was my world, the one I had made with my own decisions, my own choices, and my own power. I could wail about it, but I had learned, long ago, that tears solved nothing. Standing by the altar, beneath the hallowed and cursed ground that once was Nemeton Monastery, I closed my eyes once more and reached out for the familiar soul that was the Key of Light, Alice Elliot. 

"_...Father Doyle knew your secret..."_ I could hear her words, far away, and I listened. "_...Cardinal Simon and the dark warlock Bacon were one and the same."_

"_Exactly so. I just had to have your powers. Only one person every hundred years or so is born with powers like yours. But now... now I have obtained a different key."_

"_You kidnapped Koudelka. You forced her..."_

"_Come come now, she volunteered... to save the life of that brat, and soon I will begin the final preparations, with her help. And..." _I tried to focus in on Simon, light coming to my mind from where Alice stood. It was a church, a dark little place in Rouen; candles flickering on the ancient altar, a holy cross suspended from the ceiling... Simon stood before her, his back to her. What was he doing there, speaking to her? Was he trying to harm her?

"_And I would prefer that nothing stand in my way, **Sister** Alice. Neither you, nor any of your friends, and most especially that **harmonixer**."_

He fears Yuri, I thought. Much as I thought he would, and should. "_That's impossible. As long as you continue in your wicked ways. But..." _I could feel her confused thoughts, hear them echoing in her mind as she tried to fathom Simon's intent_. "Why are you so insistent in using magic you know is forbidden? Why is it that you want to destroy this world?"_

Through Alice's eyes I could see Simon moving into the isle of the church, his back to her, his hands folded behind his back. He looked so proper, so harmless – yet I knew how little appearances mattered with him.

"_True peace is impossible. Only an illusion of peace exists in the superficial calm of out lives,_" he said and turned back to face Alice. His face, hidden slightly in the shadows of the church yet glowed with a fanatical light – his eyes shining with conviction. "_In fact, the blood and tears of the poor are sacrificed daily by a handful of elite power-mongers. No matter how far science and technology advance, repression will never cease,"_ he said and, with a sad shake of his head, he continued. "_We are only human, and whenever the calls for revolution turn into concrete action, then instigators are met by the full resistance of the elite who will stop at nothing to keep their power."_

Alice shook her head, and wiped quickly at a tear. I could feel her pity for those less fortunate and urged her to resist Simon's nearly hypnotic voice.

"_But then, why…?"_

"_Why would I do all this?"_ and he raised his arms, indicating Alice and - I knew - so much more, and that hollow smile was back. "_Why, for revenge of course. Revenge against the dead who have lost their very souls. Really, Miss Alice, I am so glad we have been able to talk today, and I thank you. But understand, the next time we meet it will be as enemies, and I will kill you and that **harmonixer**."_ In the next instant he was gone and I could feel Alice's puzzled thoughts turning toward her friends and toward Yuri. I pulled back, feeling the weight of this place pushing me down again, the near dark a heavy weight on my soul. They would be coming then, Alice and her friends. And soon. But would it be soon enough?

Later Simon returned, and I could hear his movements around the platform. I knew the others were coming, had extended my mind yet again, reaching out for Alice, for Halley, for Yuri – and finding them in transit. How fast could they get here by train, I wondered? Would they be here before nightfall and would they be in time. I was tempted to speak to them, but knew that Simon would hear my thoughts projected to such a distance. All I could do was wait, and pray.

I was numb with waiting, my body was frozen, be-spelled, and my muscles felt like cramping up and down my back and legs. I had been standing for hours and hours, my mind numbly repeating to itself, 'when will they get here'?

Finally, after an eternity, I could hear noises from below. A deep grating sound vibrated up from the dark as the huge doors swung inward and I could hear voices. Simon stepped to the edge of the stairs and I slitted my eyes to watch him. He nodded and called to them below and I heard Yuri's voice raised above the others:

"Albert old buddy! You just sit tight! We'll be there before you know it!" Cocky as ever. Cocky as the first time I called him and just as reckless. Will he ever learn?

A few moments later Yuri and his friends thundered to the top of the platform, stopping before Albert. He had moved back to stand in front of the altar and I opened my eyes now to watch them all carefully. Yuri was in the lead and put himself between Simon and Alice, the others ranged behind him. There in the shadows was an ancient Chinese and a tall, blonde woman. Next to her another male and at Yuri's side, next to Alice, was my son Halley.

"Ah," Simon said looking over the party. "Bacon was certain that the Door of Judgement would open then." He was smiling, that vacant smile again.

Yuri tossed his head, sneering at the warlock. "Hah!" he exclaimed. "So this is all part of your plan too, eh? No running this time, bub," and he took his fighting stance, but Alice put a hand on his arm and he paused.

"Albert, what are you planning? Is it the same as the Demon's Gate Invocation?"

"Hardly," Simon said. "I broke the seals within the Vatican and stole three secret books. The Pulse Tract which can be used to command the earth veins to wake an ancient god; Dehuai almost succeeded, until _he_ interfered, somehow sealing the Seraphic Radiance within his soul. Then the Émigré Document, which creates life from nothing and can be used to summon a god of death. But both Patrick and Jack failed there too. And finally, the Codex of Ry'lyeh with which I will summon the "Other God"; an omnipotent god from the far reaches of space shall descend upon the earth and cleanse us!"

Yuri jumped forward, his fists raised again.

"Hey you quack magician! I can't let you do that! You can't hurt others just so you can play this game of misplaced vengeance!" He was getting angry, I could hear it in his voice, feel the waves of his anger reaching across the platform. So much anger, so much hate right now, with Simon, with Yuri and, with Zhuzhen. The old man was thinking black thoughts as well, blaming Simon for the destruction of his beloved Shanghai. And Halley – his young features collapsed in a deep scowl, refusing to even look my way. I had to reach out to them, to let them know what to do, to reassure Halley...

"Shaddup!" Yuri shouted. "Just who the hell do you think you are? Yer not some damned god! Don't flatter yourself. You're no different than me – an ordinary, pathetic human!" I tuned out Yuri's angry words, reaching out with my mind, carefully touching Halley just across the stone flags of the platform.

_Halley, be careful. Don't be angry. Help him. Help Yuri to stop Simon..._

"...my father worked hard to protect this world! I'm not letting a deluded scheme take it all away... ow!" Yuri paused, his voice showing pain and I knew he was hearing my voice as well. There was nothing for it then but to prepare to stop Simon and quickly.

Behind my closed eyes, I could hear Simon's magical lightening striking out and Yuri's shout of pain.

"You're a lunatic bastard!" the young harmonixer's voice ground out through the pain and Alice's cries of despair mingled with Simon's gleeful laughter.

"The sages of every age were called that," Simon shouted. "Let history decide..." I shut him out. It had gone on long enough. If I let this continue then Alice and the others would be killed, Yuri would be killed. I cannot allow that, and so I open my eyes and my power. Beside me, Simon stood at the altar, his arms raised as he shouted his challenge to Yuri and his friends. Then he turned to me, his eyes half mad. "Koudelka, Witch of the Dark Flames! Come with me and let us raise the throne of the Other Gods! The legacy of the ancient gods: Neameeto!"

But when his words echoed into the dark distance, I let my power free, reaching out to him, surrounding myself with dark magic. The power arced from my body to Simon and coruscated like lightening and my power flared. Simon turned to me, shock written on his face and he shouted at me.

"Stop now," I said. "You cannot defeat me with your power, Simon. Instead, you will disappear into the darkness with me..." for I had determined the only way to stop him would be to open a door, a gateway to beyond, and we would both be condemned to the great void. I pushed a little more, drawing the power from my body and the surrounding space while Simon continued to shout.

"No! It cannot be... are you intending to kill us both?"

Hearing his words, hearing his almost-fear, I could almost pity him. But his deeds had condemned him and me to oblivion. The life of this world, these people, that boy, were more important than my own.

"You wouldn't understand," I said quietly, the power now a blinding darkness around us. "I'd give my life to save that child's future... without a second thought. And now..." I felt the power snap like a string, building to an explosion to open the gates of eternity and then... something went wrong. The power shattered like shards, slicing through the air, through me, but not opening the gate. I cried out in pain and collapsed to the floor.

"Koudelka!" "Mom!" Yuri and Halley together crying out and I could hear Simon's deep chuckle. What had he done?

I looked at him, dribbles of blood forming in my eyes and smearing the dim chamber in red hues. But in spite of that, I could see now the dark energy surrounding Simon – an energy, a power, that was not of this earth.

"No," I gasped. "The Soul Contract?" He had consigned his soul to a demon for power. There was no way I could fight him alone, not now. Simon rose to his feet, his voice like thunder. I could hear Yuri shouting in the near distance, Alice's cries as she summoned her magicks and, all the while, I prayed for them, as pain washed over me and I slowly slipped away.

I awoke hours later in my lumpy bed in London. Ah, how good it felt to be on that sagging, moldy mattress! Halley was sitting at the desk across the room and was instantly at my side when he heard me move. His hands, large and strong like his fathers, held mine and he looked up at me with grassy eyes and I felt again the love for him that had kept me sane these past years.

"Halley," I breathed and pulled him into my arms, his back stiff and protesting before finally giving in.

"Mom, oh mom..." he started to sob then pushed away, wiping a hand across his face. "Mom, are you okay? Should you maybe stay in bed a while?" I rose slowly, feeling every muscle protest but knowing that time was fleeting.

"I'm all right, Halley. After three years, we're finally together."

Halley turned away, taking a few steps into the center of the big upstairs room, the hardwood floor covered with dust and spotted footprints.

"I'm so sorry, Mom. I - I wanted to get to you earlier."

He was feeling guilty for my imprisonment. "It's all right Halley. It must have been difficult for you. But you've done a great thing here," and I indicated the run-down old house. In my absence, he had taken in other children, much like himself, and together they had survived the harsh streets of London. He laughed softly, embarrassment warring with pride.

"It's all thanks to the little ones," he said. "I've gotta protect them!"

I felt a smile form on my lips, an answering warmth in my chest, a feeling of deep love for my boy. He was so much like his father, and like Yuri...

"How you've grown, Halley..." I could not find the words to tell him, to give him my love and support. My throat was choked with emotions I had not dared to feel while held in that hellish prison. Halley turned, looking up at me with hard emerald eyes, and I knew he wanted something from me; knew it in his look, in his stance. He _had_ grown, so much...

"Mom, I'm going to fight until the end with Yuri. I know, we just got back together, and I really wanna stay with you, but," he looked down and rubbed the toe of one sloppy shoe into the dust on the floor. "I really like them, and Yuri – he's like a big brother, even if he does piss me off sometimes... but..." he hesitated again and looked up at me. "Would you be okay with that? With me going with him?"

There it was. He wanted to leave; to go with Yuri. He would have gone anyway, whether I was here or not, and whether Yuri had lived or not. But with Yuri alive, the world and Halley, stood a chance of survival. But I'd be saying goodbye to him, not just for today. His time had come, while mine – in trying to summon a gate, in trying to defeat Simon's soul pact, had used up my remaining strength... I couldn't do anything any more... I would have to say goodbye to my son, my life, my hope, my treasure. I wanted to gather him up in my arms, hold him tightly, wash the tears from his face like I did that day he scraped his knees on the stairs, or that time when he'd broken his wrist and I used my healing power on him... he had looked so sweet and surprised as the power bathed him, healing his injury. The love he gave me with his eyes, and with his little mouth, kissing me sloppily; the tears we had shed with his little hurts, and temper tantrums; the pain I felt when they took me away from him, the whips and torture to gain my powers for their own usages, and each day, each breath I took was a prayer for Halley to be strong, for Halley to be brave. And here he was, telling me he wanted to go into the worst danger in the world – and I might never see him again. My boy. My Halley.

"Mom?"

I looked at him again, wiping quickly at the tears I felt forming in my eyes, and nodded, opening my arms for him to give me a hug. He was reluctant at first then came into my embrace and I held him, just a little, feeling the hard muscles of his back and his head resting against my breast.

"As long as you promise to come back to me. Like your father did... You're beginning to look a lot like him."

"Dad?" his voice was muffled.

"Yes. Your father always kept his promises. Thanks to him, I'm here with you now."

Halley pulled free, straightening that silly hat of his and nodded.

"I promise, I'll be back, Mom. Say," he said brightly, "let's go to America together when this is all over. We'll take a boat with Chris, Sharon and Joshua and go meet Dad..."

"Halley..." I had never told him about his father, beyond the bare essentials. He had no idea of his father, or where he was, or what he did...

"That's what we'll do, right mom?"

I nodded. What did Halley know of Edward, or America, or the world? What could I do but agree? "All right. I promise," I said but was saved from speaking more by the pounding of heavy boots up the stairs. A moment later Yuri and Alice entered.

"Yuri! Alice! Mom said it's all right for me to go with you."

Yuri looked at Halley and smirked. They were indeed like two brothers and I could see how much Halley looked up to Yuri. Halley had put his hands on his hips, challenging Yuri to deny his presence but Yuri ignored him.

"Sorry about that. Is it a bad time?" he asked instead.

"No, it's okay. You're leaving now?" And Yuri nodded. "Yuri, I don't know how to thank you. Thank you so much for coming to see me."

Yuri, the boy I spoke to for three years and across thousands of miles, laughed.

"C-c'mon. Yer embarrassin' me," he said and I could almost see the flush on his skin. "As for me, I can't believe that damn voice, er, I mean that _mysterious voice_ was actually a beauty like you." He looked up at me with those amber eyes and a small quirk at the corner of his mouth and I could see the charm he exuded. He had won the heart of Alice, had probably fought, laughed and charmed his way most of his life. And, into his hands, those same hands that wore calluses, bruises, and fighting claws, into those hands I gave the world and my son.

"Also," he continued, "I wanna thank you for savin' Alice at Kuihai Tower. But, how come it was only me who's head hurt when they heard your voice? Was I being punished?"

Startled, I looked up at him, seeing in his question the orphaned child, hearing the unspoken tears that he had shed over the years and the silent, hidden feelings of rejection. And in that moment, I loved him again, as I had when he was a child, and knowing that as much as I brought him pain, I also brought him purpose.

"No, you were not being punished, Yuri. It was because all the monsters fused inside you became terrified. Like bats fear the sunlight…" It wasn't quite the answer, but I could see it was enough. He could forgive me for the pain I dealt him.

"I see…"

"Yuri," I reached out a hand to him, wanting to take his in mine but then, thinking better of it, let my hand fall. "Yuri, there's nothing to worry about. You're protected by a greater spirit, a spirit that is so strong, that even Albert fears... Look deep inside yourself. You'll know who that soul belong to."

He looked up at me, surprised, and then nodded, accepting my words again. He was troubled, deeply, and I felt sure that Alice had not told him her own troubles, for she stood in his shadow, timid and silent.

"Alice, you've come a long way and you've carried your father's spirit and traveled a difficult road bravely."

"No…" she said, shaking her head. "It's just because of all the help I got from everyone," but she was looking at Yuri as she spoke and I could sense her unspoken plea for help, her fear at what she had done... it wasn't a dream then, what I had seen, but a memory of what she had done for him.

"I can see the burden you carry for the sake of your loved one," I said and Alice looked up, startled. "You're scared, right?" and she nodded. "Just don't ever give up hope. You have Yuri now. The curse may be strong, but he will protect you." It was all I could say. It would have to be enough.

We made our farewells and they left, taking Halley with them. I watched them leave, standing at the upstairs window... he didn't even turn back to wave. I felt bereft, empty, saddened by my loss, but I had hope too, hope for the world and for me. For three years I had endured torture and pain, endured it, and used it to fuel my power to reach across space to China and a lonely, angry, bitter young man who walked the road to ruin. Helpless and hopeless, he had kicked and fought his way into and out of trouble, but with no clear path, no motivation to live, no hope for tomorrow. Now he had that hope, with Alice. And no matter the trials that they would face in the future, no matter what enemies or foes would reach out to strike at them, they would be together. Together in faith, in hope and in love.

Watching them as they crossed the bridge and disappeared down the street, I felt envious of them.

"Please God, look after them. Bring them home safe." I couldn't do anything any more, but I could pray.


End file.
